Bibcode
Hynes, R. I.; Steeghs, D.; Casares, J.; Charles, P. A.; O'Brien, Kieran
Bibliographical reference
American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #7, #11.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 35, p.615
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3
2003
Citations
1
Refereed citations
1
Description
The Galactic Low Mass X-ray Binary GX339-4 was one of the earliest
proposed black hole candidates, yet even its most fundamental binary
parameters have eluded us for several decades. We present new outburst
spectroscopy of GX339-4 which appears to at last reveal the motion of
its elusive companion star in fluorescent NIII lines. Based on our
multi-site, multi-epoch dataset we propose a new orbital period of 1.7
days and hence derive a mass function for the compact object of 5.8
Msun, suggesting that it is indeed a black hole. In contrast to the
moving NIII lines, the wings of HeII are almost stationary, indicating
an extreme mass ratio and hence further supporting the identification of
the compact object as a black hole. Besides revealing these fundamental
parameters, the rich and variable emission line spectrum contains much
further information allowing us to dissect the X-ray irradiated
accretion structures in this object. We will discuss what we can learn
from these data using emission line lightcurves and Doppler tomograms
and compare with theoretical expectations and results from similar
systems containing accreting neutron stars.