A state change in the low-mass X-ray binary XSS J12270-4859
Abstract
Millisecond radio pulsars acquire their rapid rotation rates through mass and angular momentum transfer in a low-mass X-ray binary system. Recent studies of PSR J1824-2452I and PSR J1023+0038 have observationally demonstrated this link, and they have also shown that such systems can repeatedly transition back-and-forth between the radio millisecond pulsar and low-mass X-ray binary states. This also suggests that a fraction of such systems are not newly born radio millisecond pulsars but are rather suspended in a back-and-forth state switching phase, perhaps for giga-years. XSS J12270-4859 has been previously suggested to be a low-mass X-ray binary, and until recently the only such system to be seen at MeV-GeV energies. We present radio, optical and X-ray observations that offer compelling evidence that XSS J12270-4859 is a low-mass X-ray binary which transitioned to a radio millisecond pulsar state between 2012 November 14 and 2012 December 21. Though radio pulsations remain to be detected, we use optical and X-ray photometry/spectroscopy to show that the system has undergone a sudden dimming and no longer shows evidence for an accretion disk. The optical observations constrain the orbital period to 6.913+-0.002 hr.
Additional Information
Accepted 5 February 2014. Received 5 February 2014; in original form 5 February 2014. C.G.B. acknowledges support from ERC Advanced Grant "LEAP" (227947, PI: Michael Kramer). A.M.A. and J.W.T.H. acknowledge support from a Vrije Competitie grant from NWO. J.W.T.H. and A.P. acknowledge support from NWO Vidi grants. J.W.T.H. also acknowledges funding from an ERC Starting Grant "DRAGNET" (337062). E.F.K. acknowledges the support of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), through project number CE110001020. S.C. acknowledges the financial support from the UnivEarthSLabex program of Sorbonne Paris Cité (ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02). The Australia Telescope Compact Array and Parkes radio telescope are part of the Australia Telescope National Facility which is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Fa- cility managed by CSIRO. The work presented was based in part on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and NASA.Attached Files
Submitted - 1402.0765.pdf
Files
Name | Size | Download all |
---|---|---|
md5:662cf5259c710143890bd6277afdcd7c
|
394.1 kB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 53131
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20141223-083016052
- 227947
- European Research Council (European Union)
- Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)
- 337062
- European Research Council (European Union)
- CE110001020
- Australian Research Council
- ANR-10-LABX-0023
- Sorbonne Paris Cité UnivEarthSLabex program
- ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02
- Sorbonne Paris Cité UnivEarthSLabex program
- Commonwealth of Australia CSIRO
- ESA Member States
- NASA
- Created
-
2014-12-23Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2023-06-02Created from EPrint's last_modified field