Galactic Ultracompact X-ray Binaries: Disk Stability and Evolution

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability and evolution of ultracompact X-ray binaries, analyzing mass transfer rates and disk conditions to understand their donor types and accretion behaviors.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the donor star types, disk compositions, and stability conditions of UCXBs, especially highlighting helium star donors and C/O disks.

Findings

Most UCXBs align with white dwarf donor evolutionary tracks.

He star donors can explain high mass transfer rates in some UCXBs.

C/O disks lower the disk instability limit, accounting for persistent low-luminosity UCXBs.

Abstract

We study the mass transfer rates and disk stability conditions of ultracompact X-ray binaries (UCXBs) using empirical time-averaged X-ray luminosities from Paper I (Cartwright et al. 2013) and compiled information from the literature. The majority of UCXBs are consistent with evolutionary tracks for white dwarf donors. Three UCXBs with orbital periods longer than 40 minutes have mass transfer rates above 10^{-10} Msun/year, inconsistent with white dwarf donor tracks. We show that if helium star donors can retain their initial high entropy, they can explain the observed mass transfer rates of these UCXBs. Several UCXBs show persistent luminosities apparently below the disk instability limit for irradiated He accretion disks. We point out that a predominantly C and/or O disk (as observed in the optical spectra of several) lowers the disk instability limit, explaining this disagreement. The orbital period and low time-averaged mass transfer rate of 2S 0918-549 provide evidence that the donor star is a low-entropy C/O white dwarf, consistent with optical spectra. We combine existing information to constrain the masses of the donors in 4U 1916-053 (0.064+-0.010 Msun) and 4U 1626-67 (<0.036 Msun for a 1.4 Msun neutron star). We show that 4U 1626-67 is indeed persistent, and not undergoing a transient outburst, leaving He star models as the best explanation for the donor.