Issue |
A&A
Volume 594, October 2016
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A87 | |
Number of page(s) | 9 | |
Section | Stellar structure and evolution | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201628434 | |
Published online | 17 October 2016 |
Outbursts in ultracompact X-ray binaries
1 Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS UMR 7550, 67000 Strasbourg, France
e-mail: jean-marie.hameury@astro.unistra.fr
2 Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS et Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Paris 06, UMR 7095, 98bis Bd Arago, 75014 Paris, France
3 Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bartycka 18, 00-716 Warsaw, Poland
Received: 4 March 2016
Accepted: 14 July 2016
Context. Very faint X-ray binaries appear to be transient in many cases with peak luminosities much fainter than that of usual soft X-ray transients, but their nature still remains elusive.
Aims. We investigate the possibility that this transient behaviour is due to the same thermal/viscous instability which is responsible for outbursts of bright soft X-ray transients, occurring in ultracompact binaries for adequately low mass-transfer rates. More generally, we investigate the observational consequences of this instability when it occurs in ultracompact binaries.
Methods. We use our code for modelling the thermal-viscous instability of the accretion disc, assumed here to be hydrogen poor. We also take into account the effects of disc X-ray irradiation, and consider the impact of the mass-transfer rate on the outburst brightness.
Results. We find that one can reproduce the observed properties of both the very faint and the brighter short transients (peak luminosity, duration, recurrence times), provided that the viscosity parameter in quiescence is slightly smaller (typically a factor of between two and four) than in bright soft X-ray transients and normal dwarf nova outbursts, the viscosity in outburst being unchanged. This possibly reflects the impact of chemical composition on non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic effects affecting magnetically driven turbulence in poorly ionized discs.
Key words: accretion, accretion disks / X-rays: binaries / instabilities
© ESO, 2016
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