Is GRO J0422+32 Still Active?

Zhao, P.; McClintock, J. E.; Garcia, M. R.; Remillard, R. A.
Bibliographical reference

American Astronomical Society, 193rd AAS Meeting, #43.11; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 30, p.1314

Advertised on:
12
1998
Number of authors
4
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
GRO J0422+32 (= V518 Per) is a black-hole X-ray nova which went into outburst on August 5, 1992. Since then, we have been monitoring the decay light curve of the optical counterpart using the FLWO 1.2-m telescope. Following the steep optical decay of the primary outburst in April 1993, two mini-outbursts were observed with amplitudes of ~ 4 mag and a separation of 120 days. J0422+32 entered its quiescent state in the summer of 1994 with magnitudes of R ~ 21 and V ~ 22. However, there were reports last year that the object may be still exhibiting X-ray activity on a 120-day time scale based on RXTE/ASM data (IAUC 6605, 6738 and 6740). We present complete optical and X-ray light curves for J0422+32 and examine the evidence for any non-quiescent behavior of the source during the past four years.