1RXH J082623.6-505741: a new long-period cataclysmic variable with an evolved donor and a low mass transfer rate

Abstract

We report the discovery of 1RXH J082623.6-505741, a 10.4 hr orbital period compact binary. Modeling extensive optical photometry and spectroscopy reveals a $\sim 0.4M_{\odot }$ K-type secondary transferring mass through a low-state accretion disk to a non-magnetic $\sim 0.8M_{\odot }$ white dwarf. The secondary is overluminous for its mass and dominates the optical spectra at all epochs, and must be evolved to fill its Roche Lobe at this orbital period. The X-ray luminosity $L_X\sim 1$-$2\times 10^{32}$ erg s${}^{-1}$ derived from both new XMM-Newton and archival observations, although high compared to most CVs, still only requires a modest accretion rate onto the white dwarf of $\dot{M}\sim 3\times 10^{-11}$ to $3\times 10^{-10}{M}_{\odot }$ yr${}^{-1}$, lower than expected for a cataclysmic variable with an evolved secondary. No dwarf nova outbursts have yet been observed from the system, consistent with the low derived mass transfer rate. Several other cataclysmic variables with similar orbital periods also show unexpectedly low mass transfer rates, even though selection effects disfavor the discovery of binaries with these properties. This suggests the abundance and evolutionary state of long-period, low mass transfer rate cataclysmic variables is worthy of additional attention.

21 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, accepted to ApJ

References in corpus (40)

• The Zwicky Transient Facility: System Overview, Performance, and First Results
• Estimating distances from parallaxes. V: Geometric and photogeometric distances to 1.47 billion stars in Gaia Early Data Release 3
• Modelling the behaviour of accretion flows in X-ray binaries
• The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) Light Curve Server v1.0
• Achieving better than 1 minute accuracy in the Heliocentric and Barycentric Julian Dates
• Second ROSAT all-sky survey (2RXS) source catalogue
• Magnetic White Dwarfs
• The first XMM-Newton slew survey catalogue: XMMSL1
• GASS: The Parkes Galactic All-Sky Survey. Update: improved correction for instrumental effects and new data release
• A method for the estimation of the significance of cross-correlations in unevenly sampled red-noise time series
• The Joker: A custom Monte Carlo sampler for binary-star and exoplanet radial velocity data
• Constraining the Evolution of Cataclysmic Variables via the Masses and Accretion Rates of their Underlying White Dwarfs
• Optical spectroscopy and demographics of redback millisecond pulsar binaries
• Population Synthesis of Cataclysmic Variables: I. Inclusion of Detailed Nuclear Evolution
• Comparative performance of selected variability detection techniques in photometric time series
• Evolution of Cataclysmic Variables and Related Binaries Containing a White-Dwarf
• Constraints on the space density of intermediate polars from the Swift-BAT survey
• Is the dust-to-gas ratio constant in molecular clouds?
• A Hard X-Ray Power-Law Spectral Cutoff in Centaurus X-4
• 1FGL J1417.7-4407: A likely gamma-ray bright binary with a massive neutron star and a giant secondary
• CTCV J2056-3014: An X-ray-faint Intermediate Polar Harboring An Extremely Fast-spinning White Dwarf
• Accretion Flows in Nonmagnetic White Dwarf Binaries as Observed in X-rays
• Discovery of a Candidate Central Compact Object in the Galactic Nonthermal SNR G330.2+1.0
• 2FGL J0846.0+2820: A new neutron star binary with a giant secondary and variable $\gamma$-ray emission
• A millisecond pulsar discovery in a survey of unidentified Fermi $\gamma$-ray sources with LOFAR
• Classical Novae Masquerading as Dwarf Novae? Outburst Properties of Cataclysmic Variables with ASAS-SN
• XMM-Newton observations of eleven intermediate polars and possible candidates
• Extending the $Z_n^2$ and $H$ statistics to generic pulsed profiles
• Determination of the basic parameters of the dwarf nova EY Cygni
• PSR J1306--40: An X-ray Luminous Redback with an Evolved Companion
• The Relationship Between X-ray Luminosity and Duty Cycle for Dwarf Novae and their Specific Frequency in the Inner Galaxy
• Synthetic NLTE accretion disc spectra for the dwarf nova SS Cyg during an outburst cycle
• Proper motion, spectra, and timing of PSR J1813-1749 using Chandra and NICER
• Search for gamma-ray emission from AE Aquarii with seven years of FERMI-LAT observations
• Observations of GRO J1744-28 in quiescence with XMM-Newton
• Spiral structures and temperature distribution in the quiescent accretion disc of the cataclysmic binary V2051 Ophiuchi
• Variation of the ultraviolet extinction law across the Taurus-Auriga star forming complex. A GALEX based study
• On More Sensitive Periodogram Statistics
• An X-ray study for white dwarf binary AR Scorpii
• X-ray properties of dwarf nova EY Cyg and the companion star using an XMM-Newton observation

Cited by in corpus (1)

• An X-Ray-dim "Isolated'' Neutron Star in a Binary?