Related papers: Echoes in X-ray Binaries
In X-ray binaries much of the optical/UV emission arises from X-rays reprocessed by material in the accretion disk, stream and the companion star. The resulting reprocessed variability will be delayed in time with respect to the X-ray…
We demonstrate correlated rapid variability between the optical/UV and X-ray emission for the first time in a soft X-ray transient, GRO J1655-40: HST light curves show similar features to those seen by RXTE, but with mean delay of 10-20s.…
It has long been known that X-ray and optical/UV variability in active X-ray binaries is sometimes correlated. The expectation has been that this arises from rapid reprocessing of X-rays into longer wavelength photons, and hence that the…
Observations suggest that accretion discs in many X-ray binaries are likely flared. An outer edge of the disc intercepts radiation from the central X-ray source. Part of that radiation is absorbed and reemitted in the optical/UV spectral…
We present the first high time-resolution simultaneous X-ray, ultraviolet, and optical observations of X-ray bursts in UY Vol, the optical counterpart of the low mass X-ray binary EXO 0748-676, obtained with RXTE, HST, and Gemini-S. Strong…
We present photometric observations of the field around the optical counterparts of high-mass X-ray binaries. Our aim is to study the long-term photometric variability in correlation with their X-ray activity and derive a set of secondary…
Temporal analysis of X-ray binaries and Active Galactic Nuclei have shown that hard X-rays react to variation of soft ones after a time delay. The opposite trend, or soft lag, has only been seen in a few rare Quasi-periodic Oscillations in…
Sco X-1 is the brightest extra-solar point source of X-rays, and may serve as a prototype for low mass X-ray binaries as a class. It has been suggested that the UV and optical emission arise as a result of reprocessing of X-rays, and that a…
Long-term ("superorbital") periods or modulations have been detected in a wide variety of both low and high-mass X-ray binaries at X-ray and optical wavelengths. A variety of mechanisms have been proposed to account for the variability…
X-ray irradiation in X-ray binaries is thought to control the behavior at the outer disc, which is observable mainly at optical wavelengths. It is generally parameterized phenomenologically, but it can also be predicted from theoretical…
We present new results of our X-ray monitoring of the transient binary supersoft X-ray source RX J0513.9-6951 in the LMC and of our re-analysis of optical light curves obtained during the MACHO project. We have covered a complete X-ray…
Using simultaneous observations in X-rays and optical, we have performed a homogeneous analysis of the cross-correlation behaviours of four X-ray binaries: SWIFT J1753.5-0127, GX 339-4, Sco X-1, and Cyg X-2. With high time-resolution…
We present the first systematic physical modelling of the time-lag spectra between the soft (0.3-1 keV) and the hard (1.5-4 keV) X-ray energy bands, as a function of Fourier frequency, in a sample of 12 active galactic nuclei which have…
The UV emission from X-ray binaries, is more likely to be produced by reprocessing of X-rays by the outer regions of an accretion disk. The structure of the outer disk may be altered due to the presence of X-ray irradiation and we discuss…
We present the results of our monitoring program to study the long-term variability of the Halpha line in high-mass X-ray binaries. We have carried out the most complete optical spectroscopic study of the global properties of high-mass…
In recent years proper motion measurements have been added to the set of observational constraints on the current properties of Galactic X-ray binaries. We develop an analysis that allows us to consider all this available information and…
The main goal of this work is to investigate the fast photometric variability of the optical counterparts to supergiant X-ray binaries and to compare the general patterns of such variability with the Galactic population of other early-type…
We build a simple model of the optical/UV emission from irradiation of the outer disc by the inner disc and coronal emission in black hole binaries. We apply this to the broadband Swift data from the outburst of the black hole binary XTE…
We present simultaneous high time resolution (1-10 Hz) X-ray and optical observations of the persistent LMXBs Sco X-1 and V801 Ara(=4U 1636-536). In the case of Sco X-1 we find that the Bowen/HeII emission lags the X-ray light-curves with a…
Five archived X-ray observations of NGC 4051, taken using the NuSTAR observatory, have been analysed, revealing lags between flux variations in bands covering a wide range of X-ray photon energy. In all pairs of bands compared, the harder…