A New TeV Binary: The Discovery of an Orbital Period in HESS J0632+057

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a 321-day orbital period in the gamma-ray source HESS J0632+057, confirming its nature as a TeV/X-ray binary through analysis of Swift X-ray observations.

Contribution

It provides the first definitive evidence of orbital modulation in HESS J0632+057, establishing it as a binary system with a specific orbital period.

Findings

Detected 321-day periodic flux modulation

Confirmed binary nature of HESS J0632+057

Established as a TeV/X-ray binary system

Abstract

HESS J0632+057 is a variable, point-like source of Very High Energy ($>100$ GeV) gamma-rays located in the Galactic plane. It is positionally coincident with a Be star, it is a variable radio and X-ray source, has a hard X-ray spectrum, and has low radio flux. These properties suggest that the object may be a member of the rare class of TeV/X-ray binary systems. The definitive confirmation of this would be the detection of a periodic orbital modulation of the flux at any wavelength. We have obtained {\it Swift} X-ray telescope observations of the source from MJD 54857 to 55647 (Jan. 2009 - Mar. 2011) to test the hypothesis that HESS J0632+057 is an X-ray/TeV binary. We show that these data exhibit flux modulation with a period of $321 \pm 5$ days and we evaluate the significance of this period by calculating the null hypothesis probability, allowing for stochastic flaring. This periodicity establishes the binary nature of HESS J0632+057.