Abstracts by session
| Name: | Lee Townsend |
| Institution: | University of Southampton |
| Country: | UK |
| Title: | A first look at the orbital parameters of Be/X-ray binaries in the Small Magellanic Cloud |
| Abstract: | The orbital motion of a neutron star about its optical companion presents a window through which to study the orbital parameters of that binary system. This has been used extensively in the Milky Way to calculate these parameters for several high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXB). Using several years of RXTE PCA data, we derive the orbital parameters of five Be/X-ray binary (BeXRB) systems in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), increasing the number of systems with orbital solutions to six. This sample, although small in comparison to that of the Galaxy, allows us to study the orbits of extra-Galactic BeXRBs for the first time and compare them to what is known in our own Galaxy. Despite the low metallicity in the SMC, we find these systems sit amongst the Galactic distribution of orbital periods and eccentricities, suggesting that metallicity may not play an important role in the evolution of BeXRB systems. A plot of orbital period against eccentricity for both Galactic and SMC systems shows that the supergiant, Be and low eccentricity OB transient systems occupy separate regions of the parameter space; akin to the separated regions on the Corbet diagram. Using a Spearman's rank correlation test, we also find a possible correlation between the two parameters. |
Jul 20, 2011
First post-conference announcement
The conference picture is available for downloading at the conference website.
A forum has also been made available to allow for discussions to go on.
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First post-conference announcement
BeXRB 2011 News
BeXRB 2011 News