Related papers: CAL 87 - an evolved wind-driven supersoft X-ray bi…

A comparison is made between the properties of CAL 83, CAL 87, RX J0513.9-6951, 1E 0035.4-7230 (SMC 13), RX J0019.8+2156, and RX J0925.7-4758, all supersoft X-ray binaries. Spectra with the same resolution and wavelength coverage of these…

Details of simultaneous photometric and spectroscopic observations of the optical counterpart of the `supersoft' X-ray source 1E 0035.4-7230 (SMC 13) are presented. Although the spectrum is dominated by emission lines of He II, the Balmer…

Accretion-induced collapse of massive white dwarfs (WDs) has been proposed to be an important channel to form binary millisecond pulsars (MSPs). Recent investigations on thermal timescale mass transfer in WD binaries demonstrate that the…

We present VLT and Magellan spectroscopy and NTT photometry of nine faint cataclysmic variables (CVs) which were spectroscopically identified by the SDSS. We measure orbital periods for five of these from the velocity variations of the…

Supersoft X-ray sources (SSSs) are characterized by their low effective temperatures and high X-ray luminosities. The soft X-ray emission can be explained by hydrogen nuclear burning on the surface of a white dwarf (WD) accreting at an…

Optical emission from actively accreting X-ray binaries is dominated by X-ray reprocessing on the outer disk. In the regime of supercritical accretion, strong radiation will power a massive wind that is optically thick and nearly spherical,…

The supersoft X-ray binary RX J0513.9-6951 shows cyclic changes between optical-low / X-ray-on states and optical-high / X-ray-off states. It is supposed to be accreting close to the Eddington-critical limit and driven by "accretion wind…

The discrepancies between observations and theoretical predictions of cataclysmic variables (CVs) suggest that there exists unknown angular momentum loss mechanism(s) besides magnetic braking and gravitational radiation. Mass loss due to…

Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients are a class of Galactic High Mass X-ray Binaries with supergiant companions. Their extreme transient X-ray flaring activity was unveiled thanks to INTEGRAL/IBIS observations. The SFXTs dynamic range, with…

A new class of high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) --- supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs) --- are discovered by INTEGRAL, which are associated with OB supergiants and present long spin periods. Observational evidence indicates that some…

We present the results of a systematic study of cataclysmic variables (CVs) and related systems, combining detailed binary-population synthesis (BPS) models with a grid of 120 binary evolution sequences calculated with a Henyey-type stellar…

The superorbital modulations (SMs) observed in wind-fed X-ray binaries remain a puzzling phenomenon in astrophysics. To investigate this behavior observationally, we analyzed the long-term hard X-ray light curve from the Swift/BAT 157-Month…

We review X-ray flux modulation from X-ray binaries on time scales corresponding to the orbital period and those at longer time scales (so called superorbital). Those modulations provide a powerful tool to constrain geometry of the…

Supersoft X-ray sources (SSSs) are characterized by persistent thermonuclear burning on the surfaces of white dwarfs (WDs).The standard model requires high mass transfer rates of $\sim 10^{-7}\, {\rm M_{\odot}}\,yr^{-1}$ from massive…

We find that the ROSAT source 1RXS J105010.3-140431 is a cataclysmic variable with orbital period of 88.6 minutes and a spectrum closely resembling WZ Sge. In particular, emission lines are flanked by Stark-broadened absorption wings…

Recurring outbursts associated with matter flowing onto compact stellar remnants (black-holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs) in close binary systems, provide strong test beds for constraining the poorly understood accretion process. The…

IGR J16493-4348 is an eclipsing supergiant high-mass X-ray binary (sgHMXB), where accretion onto the compact object occurs via the radially outflowing stellar wind of its early B-type companion. We present an analysis of the system's X-ray…

We present high-speed, multicolour photometry of the faint, eclipsing cataclysmic variable (CV) SDSS J105754.25+275947.5. The light from this system is dominated by the white dwarf. Nonetheless, averaging many eclipses reveals additional…

We calculate the X-ray luminosity and light curve for the stellar binary system Eta Carinae for the entire orbital period of 5.54 years. By using a new approach we find, as suggested before, that the collision of the winds blown by the two…

XMM-Newton observations aimed at determining for the first time the broad-band X-ray properties of the faint high galactic latitude Intermediate Polar UU Col are presented. We performed X-ray timing analysis in different energy ranges of…