Optical emission of the black hole X-ray transient MAXI J1659-152 during quiescence

Abstract

We report on the optical detection of the black hole X-ray transient MAXI J1659-152 during its quiescent state. By using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), we observed MAXI J1659-152 about 7 months after the end of an X-ray outburst. The optical counterpart of MAXI J1659-152 is clearly detected with a r'-band magnitude of 23.6-23.8. The detection confirms that the optical emission of MAXI J1659-152 during quiescence is relatively bright comparing to other black hole X-ray transients. This implies that the distance to MAXI J1659-152 is 4.6-7.5 kpc for a M2 dwarf companion star, or 2.3-3.8 kpc for a M5 dwarf companion star. By comparing with other measurements, a M2 dwarf companion is more likely.

4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL

References in corpus (5)

• The Pan-STARRS1 Photometric System
• The black hole candidate MAXIJ1659-152 in and towards quiescence in X-ray and radio
• Discovery of an unidentified Fermi object as a black widow-like millisecond pulsar
• The 2005 outburst of the halo black hole X-ray transient XTE J1118+480
• VLT/X-shooter spectroscopy of the candidate black-hole X-ray binary MAXI J1659-152 in outburst

Cited by in corpus (8)

• BlackCAT: A catalogue of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray transients
• MAXI J1659-152: The shortest orbital period black-hole transient in outburst
• Evidence for quiescent synchrotron emission in the black hole X-ray transient Swift J1357.2-0933
• The X-ray properties of the black hole transient MAXI J1659-152 in quiescence
• Broadband monitoring tracing the evolution of the jet and disk in the black hole candidate X-ray binary MAXI J1659-152
• Delimiting the black hole mass in the X-ray transient MAXI J1659-152 with H$\alpha$ spectroscopy
• The long-term optical evolution of the black hole candidate MAXI J1659-152
• Estimating the spin of the black hole candidate MAXI J1659-152 with the X-ray continuum-fitting method