Related papers: Ultra-compact X-ray binaries with high luminosity:…

Transient X-ray binaries remain in their quiescent state for a long time (months to hundred years) and then bright up as the most powerful sources of the X-ray sky. While it is clear that, when in outbursts, transient binaries are powered…

The mass transfer in binaries with massive donors and compact companions, when the donors rapidly evolve after their main sequence, is one of the dominant formation channels of merging double stellar-mass black hole binaries. This mass…

Ultraluminous X-ray binaries have challenged our assumptions of extreme accretion rates in X-ray binaries, and impact other subfields of astronomy, such as cosmology, gravitational wave sources and supernov{\ae}. Our understanding of ULXs…

We show that stable disk accretion should be very rare among low-mass X-ray binaries and cataclysmic variables whose evolution is driven by the nuclear expansion of the secondary star on the first giant branch. Stable accretion is confined…

Three black-hole low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) in the Milky Way show rates of period decay which cannot be easily explained by standard mechanisms. Recently, it has been claimed that the anomalous period decays in two of these systems may…

The recent discovery of a neutron star accretor in the ultra-luminous X-ray source M82 X-2 challenges our understanding of high-mass X-ray binary formation and evolution. By combining binary population synthesis and detailed mass-transfer…

We consider evolutionary models for the population of short-period (<10 hr) low-mass black-hole binaries (LMBHBs) and compare them with observations of soft X-ray transients (SXTs). We show that assuming strongly reduced magnetic braking…

We report the discovery of the orbital period of the ultracompact low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) 4U 1543-624 using time-resolved optical photometry taken with the 6.5-m Clay (Magellan II) telescope in Chile. The light curve in the Sloan r'…

Almost all Galactic black hole binaries with low mass donor stars are transient X-ray sources; we expect most of the X-ray transients observed in external galaxies to be black hole binaries also. Obtaining period estimates for…

Since the detection of X-ray pulses from ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in 2014, neutron stars have been considered as their central objects. However, it remains unclear how neutron stars can be brighter than the Eddington luminosity,…

We investigate how the proximity of supergiant donor stars to the Eddington-limit, and their advanced evolutionary stage, may influence the evolution of massive and ultra-luminous X-ray binaries with supergiant donor stars (SGXBs and ULXs).…

We model the multiwavelength properties of binaries accreting at super-critical rates with the aim to better understand the observational properties of Ultra-luminous X-ray Sources (ULXs). We calculate an extended grid of binary systems…

While many observed ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs, Lx > 10^39 erg s^-1) could be extragalactic X-ray binaries (XRBs) emitting close to the Eddington limit, the highest-luminosity ULXs (Lx > 3x10^39 erg s^-1) exceed the isotropic…

Many atomic and molecular systems of fundamental interest possess resonance frequencies in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) where laser technology is limited and radiation sources have traditionally lacked long-term phase coherence. Recent…

We report results from long-term (approximately 1240 days) X-ray (0.3-8.0 keV) monitoring of the ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5408 X-1 with the Swift/X-Ray Telescope. Here we expand on earlier work by Strohmayer (2009) who used only a…

We present the first joint NuSTAR and NICER observations of the ultra-compact X-ray binary (UCXB) 4U 0614+091. This source shows quasi-periodic flux variations on the timescale of ~days. We use reflection modeling techniques to study…

In X-ray binaries, rapid variability in X-ray flux of greater than an order of magnitude on time-scales of a day or less appears to be a signature of wind accretion from a supergiant companion. When the variability takes the form of rare,…

In this Letter we examine the idea that a subset of short-period black-hole low-mass X-ray binaries could be powered by the mass transfer from pre-main sequence donors. As the star contracts towards the main sequence, the strong magnetic…

By comparing the orbital period distributions of black hole and neutron star low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) in the Ritter-Kolb catalogue we show that there is statistical evidence for a dearth of black hole systems at short orbital periods…

We present results from several years of fast optical photometry of 4U0614+091 (V1055 Orionis), a candidate ultracompact X-ray binary most likely consisting of a neutron star and a degenerate secondary. We find evidence for strong…