Bibcode
Kaur, Ramanpreet; Kaper, L.; Ellerbroek, L.; Russell, D.M.; Altamirano, D.; Wijnands, R.; GRB/X-shooter Team
Bibliographical reference
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #433.05
Advertised on:
1
2012
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
MAXI J1659-152 which was discovered using Swift as a Gamma-ray-burst,
was later on confirmed as a candidate Galactic black-hole X-ray binary.
The source was intensively followed up by Swift and RXTE during its
X-ray outburst and was revealed as a shortest period (2.4 hrs)
black-hole X-ray binary. Following the X-ray outburst, we triggered the
ESO-Very Large Telescope and obtained the optical and the near-infrared
spectra of the source with the X-shooter spectrograph. The source was in
low-hard state during our observations. The spectrum includes many broad
( 2000 km/s) double peaked hydrogen and helium emission features. Two
important results of our observations include the linear trend seen in
the peak separation of the H lines with respect to the energy of their
upper transitional levels and the considerable variability seen in the
red-wing of the spectral line profiles between the two subsequent
exposures. From our observations we estimated the distance to the source
as 4 +/- 1 kpc. We would like to present these results in the context
of the accretion flows in the compact black hole X-ray binaries.