TRANSIENT LOW-MASS X-RAY BINARY POPULATIONS IN ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES NGC 3379 AND NGC 4278

Journal Article · Thu Sep 10 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · Astrophysical Journal (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/702/2/L143; COUNTRY OF INPUT: INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA)· OSTI ID:21335988

Fragos, T; Kalogera, V

We propose a physically motivated and self-consistent prescription for the modeling of transient neutron star low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) properties, such as duty cycle (DC), outburst duration, and recurrence time. We apply this prescription to the population synthesis models of field LMXBs presented by Fragos et al., and compare the transient LMXB population to the Chandra X-ray survey of the two elliptical galaxies NGC 3379 and NGC 4278, which revealed several transient sources. We are able to exclude models with a constant DC for all transient systems, while models with a variable DC based on the properties of each system are consistent with the observed transient populations. We predict that the majority of the observed transient sources in these two galaxies are LMXBs with red giant donors. Finally, our comparison suggests that transient LMXBs are very rare in globular clusters (GCs), and thus the number of identified transient LMXBs may be used as a tracer of the relative contribution of field and GC LMXB populations.

• OSTI ID: 21335988
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal (Online), Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal (Online) Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 702; ISSN 1538-4357
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
GALAXIES
MASS
NEUTRON STARS
SIMULATION
STAR EVOLUTION
TRANSIENTS
X RADIATION