Related papers: Quest for the Donor Star in the Magnetic Precatacl…
We report near-infrared observations of the supergiant donor to the eclipsing high mass X-ray binary pulsar IGR J18027-2016. We aim to determine its spectral type and measure its radial velocity curve and hence determine the stellar masses…
We report on the discovery of circular polarization modulated with a period of 1.943 +- 0.002 h in the cataclysmic variable V1082 Sgr. These findings unambiguously reveal the rotation of a magnetic white dwarf and establish its intermediate…
Gl 758 B is a late-T dwarf orbiting a metal-rich Sun-like star at a projected separation of $\rho$ $\approx$ 1.6" (25 AU). We present four epochs of astrometry of this system with NIRC2 at Keck Observatory spanning 2010 to 2017 together…
A long standing and unverified prediction of binary star evolution theory is the existence of a population of white dwarfs accreting from sub-stellar donor stars. Such systems ought to be common, but the difficulty of finding them, combined…
Physical parameters of both the mass donor and compact object can be constrained in X-ray binaries with well-defined eclipses, as our survey of wind-fed supergiant X-ray binaries (SGXBs) IGR J16393-4643, IGR J16418-4532, IGR J16479-4514,…
We report the discovery of a relatively bright eclipsing binary system, which consists of a white dwarf and a main sequence K7 star with clear signs of chromospheric and spot activity. The light curve of this system shows $\sim0.2$mag…
This work reports new photometric results of eclipsing cataclysmic variable V617 Sagittarii (V617 Sgr). We analyzed the orbital period change of V617 Sgr, by employing three new CCD eclipse timings since 2010 along with all the available…
We have revisited the sdB+K-star long-period binary PG 1018-047 based on 20 new high-resolution VLT/UVES spectra that provided regular coverage over a period of more than 26 months. We refine the period and establish that the orbit is…
We have performed detailed numerical calculations of the non-conservative evolution of close binary systems with low-mass (1.0-2.0 M_sun) donor stars and a 1.3 M_sun accreting neutron star. Rather than using analytical expressions for…
Secondary stars in cataclysmic variables (CVs) follow a well defined period-density relation. Thus, canonical donor stars in CVs are generally low-mass stars of spectral type M. However, several CVs have been observed containing secondary…
Splaver and coworkers have measured the masses of the white dwarf and the neutron star components of the PSR J1713+0747 binary system pair by Shapiro Delay. We attempt to find the original configuration of this system performing a set of…
High-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) consist of a massive donor star and a compact object. While several of those systems have been well studied in X-rays, little is known for most of the donor stars as they are often heavily obscured in the…
The star S0-2, which is orbiting Sgr A* with a 15-yr period, almost certainly did not form in situ. We propose that it was injected into this close orbit by the tidal disruption of a massive-star binary, whose primary was more massive than…
We report the discovery of two new magnetic cataclysmic variables with brown dwarf companions and long orbital periods ($P_{\rm orb}=95\pm1$ and $104\pm2$ min). This discovery increases the sample of candidate magnetic period bouncers with…
We study the formation of neon-enriched donor stars in ultracompact X-ray binaries (orbital periods P<80 min) and show that their progenitors have to be low-mass (0.3 - 0.4 solar mass) ``hybrid'' white dwarfs (with CO cores and thick helium…
The polar V379 Vir is a well-known magnetic cataclysmic variable with a brown dwarf donor. Despite numerous studies of this system across various spectral ranges, a detailed investigation of the orbital variability of its optical spectra…
In an XMM-Newton observation of the binary SDSS J121209.31+013627.7, consisting of a white dwarf and an L dwarf, we detect X-ray orbital modulation as proof of accretion from the substellar companion onto the magnetic white dwarf. We…
Stellar rotation periods are valuable both for constraining models of angular momentum loss and for under- standing how magnetic features impact inferences of exoplanet parameters. Building on our previous work in the northern hemisphere,…
We present a radial velocity study of the rapidly rotating B-star Regulus that indicates the star is a single-lined spectroscopic binary. The orbital period (40.11 d) and probable semimajor axis (0.35 AU) are large enough that the system is…
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…