On the masses and evolutionary status of the black hole binary GX 339-4: a twin system of XTE J1550-564?

Muñoz-Darias, T.; Casares, J.; Martínez-Pais, I. G.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 385, Issue 4, pp. 2205-2209.

Advertised on:
4
2008
Number of authors
3
IAC number of authors
3
Citations
114
Refereed citations
105
Description
We apply the K-correction to the black hole low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) GX 339-4 which implies MX >= 6Msolar by only assuming that the companion is more massive than ~0.17Msolar, the lower limit allowed by applying a `stripped-giant' model. This evolutionary model successfully reproduces the observed properties of the system. We obtain a maximum mass for the companion of M2 <= 1.1Msolar and an upper limit to the mass ratio of q(=M2/MX) <= 0.125. The high X-ray activity displayed by the source suggests a relatively large mass transfer rate which, according to the model, results in M2 >~ 0.3Msolar and MX >~ 7Msolar. We have also applied this scenario to the black hole binary XTE J1550-564, which has a similar orbital period but the donor is detected spectroscopically. The model successfully reproduces the observed stellar parameters.
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