English

The minimum orbital period in thermal-timescale mass transfer

Astrophysics 2009-10-31 v1

Abstract

We show that the usual picture of supersoft X-ray binary evolution as driven by conservative thermal-timescale mass transfer cannot explain the short orbital periods of RX J0537.7-7034 (3.5 hr) and 1E 0035.4-7230 (4.1 hr). Non-conservative evolution may produce such periods, but requires very significant mass loss, and is highly constrained.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0009062,
  title  = {The minimum orbital period in thermal-timescale mass transfer},
  author = {A. R. King and K. Schenker and U. Kolb and M. B. Davies},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0009062},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

6 pages, 5 figures; to appear in MNRAS