Sample of LMXBs in the Galactic bulge. I. Optical and near-infrared constraints from the Virtual Observatory

TL;DR

This paper compiles and analyzes optical and near-infrared data from archives and Virtual Observatory resources for six low mass X-ray binaries in the Galactic bulge, providing positional, flux, and physical parameter estimates.

Contribution

It presents the first comprehensive archival optical/NIR analysis of these six LMXBs, including new finding charts and physical parameter estimates.

Findings

Identified optical/NIR counterparts for six LMXBs.

Provided flux constraints and finding charts for each system.

Estimated physical parameters of the binaries.

Abstract

We report on the archival optical and near-infrared observations of 6 low mass X-ray binaries situated in the Galactic bulge. We processed several recent Chandra and XMM-Newton as well as Einstein datasets of a binary systems suspected to be ultracompact, which gave us arcsec-scale positional uncertainty estimates. We then undertook comprehensive search in existing archives and other Virtual Observatory resources in order to discover unpublished optical/NIR data on these objects. We found and analysed data from ESO Archive and UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) on SLX 1735-269, 3A 1742-294, SLX 1744-299, SLX 1744-300, GX 3+1, IGR J17505-2644 systems and publish their finding charts and optical flux constraints in this paper, as well as simple estimates of the physical parameters of these objects.