Related papers: Assisted stellar suicide in V617 Sgr

Nova V5116 Sgr 2005 No. 2, discovered on 2005 July 4, was observed with XMM-Newton in March 2007, 20 months after the optical outburst. The X-ray spectrum showed that the nova had evolved to a pure supersoft X-ray source, indicative of…

Recent studies of massive binaries with putative black hole companions have uncovered a phase of binary evolution that has not been observed before, featuring a bloated stripped star that very recently ceased transferring mass to a…

Repeated radial velocities have been measured for a sample of 10 subgiant CH (sgCH) stars over a period of about 15 years. Long-term velocity variations are exhibited by all but one star, and spectroscopic orbits have been calculated for…

We report on a coherent timing analysis of the 163 Hz accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar IGR J17062-6143. Using data collected with the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer and XMM-Newton, we investigated the pulsar evolution over a…

We report the association of the INTEGRAL source IGR J18027-2016 with the BeppoSAX source SAX J1802.7-2017. IGR J18027-2016 is seen to be a weak, persistent source by the IBIS/ISGRI instrument on board INTEGRAL with an average source count…

A binary in which a slightly evolved star starts mass transfer to a neutron star can evolve towards ultra-short orbital periods under the influence of magnetic braking. This is called magnetic capture. We investigate in detail for which…

A growing number of previously hidden Galactic X-ray sources are now detected with recent surveys performed by the Integral and Swift satellites. Most of these new sources eluded past surveys due to their large local X-ray extinction and…

The X-ray source 2S0114+650=LSI+65 010 is a binary system containing a B-type primary and a low mass companion believed to be a neutron star. The system has three reported periodicities: the orbital period, P{orb}~11.6 d, X-ray flaring with…

We present spectroscopic and photometric observations of the eclipsing binary V32 located in the central field of the globular cluster NGC 6397. The variable is a single-line spectroscopic binary with an orbital period of 9.8783d and a…

A new X-ray source, XTE J1855-026, was discovered during RXTE scans along the galactic plane. The source shows pulsations at a period of 361 s and also modulation at a period of 6.1 days which we interpret as the orbital period of the…

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…

V1017 Sgr is a classical nova (in 1919) that displayed an earlier dwarf nova eruption (in 1901), and two more dwarf nova events (in 1973 and 1991). Previous work on this bright system in quiescence (V=13.5) has only been a few isolated…

We present a detailed study of the 2016 eruption of nova V407 Lupi (ASASSN-16kt), including optical, near-infrared, X-ray, and ultraviolet data from SALT, SMARTS, SOAR, Chandra, Swift, and XMM-Newton. Timing analysis of the multiwavelength…

Evidence is emerging that the luminous X-ray sources in the cores of globular clusters may often consist of, or perhaps even as a class be dominated by, ultracompact (P < 1 hr) binary stars. To the two such systems already known, in NGC…

The evolutionary status of the low mass X-ray binary SAX J1808.4-3658 is simulated by following the binary evolution of its possible progenitor system through mass transfer, starting at a period of $\sim$6.6 hr. The evolution includes…

IGR J16195-4945 is a hard X-ray source discovered by INTEGRAL during the Core Program observations performed in 2003. We analyzed the X-ray emission of this source exploiting the Swift-BAT survey data from December 2004 to March 2015, and…

Binary post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) stars are thought to be the products of a strong but poorly-understood interaction during the AGB phase. The aim of this contribution is to update the orbital elements of a sample of galactic…

While the first binary post-AGB stars were serendipitously discovered, the distinct characteristics of their Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) allowed us to launch a more systematic search for binaries. We selected post-AGB objects which…

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 report our investigation of 1SWASP J234401.81-212229.1, a variable with a 18461.6 s period. After identification in a 2011 search of the SuperWASP archive for main-sequence eclipsing binary candidates near the distribution's short-period…