# Bright mini-outburst ends the 12-year long activity of the black hole candidate Swift J1753.5-0127

## TL;DR

This study monitors the final stages of a 12-year outburst of the black hole candidate Swift J1753.5-0127, revealing a mini-outburst and reflare, and suggests a link between disk temperature and outburst decay.

## Contribution

It introduces a new classification method for rebrightening events and links mini-outbursts to short orbital periods and disk temperature conditions.

## Key findings

- Mini-outburst peaked at flux consistent with prior decay extrapolation.
- Optical color indicates outer disk temperature of ~11,000 K during rapid fade.
- Mini-outbursts occur in short orbital period systems (<7h).

## Abstract

We present optical, UV and X-ray monitoring of the short orbital period black hole X-ray binary candidate Swift J1753.5-0127, focusing on the final stages of its 12$-$year long outburst that started in 2005. From September 2016 onward, the source started to fade and within three months, the optical flux almost reached the quiescent level. Soon after that, using a new proposed rebrightening classification method we recorded a mini-outburst and a reflare in the optical light curves, peaking in February (V$\rm\sim$17.0) and May (V$\rm\sim$17.9) 2017, respectively. Remarkably, the mini-outburst has a peak flux consistent with the extrapolation of the slow decay before the fading phase preceding it. The following reflare was fainter and shorter. We found from optical colors that the temperature of the outer disk was $\sim 11$,000 K when the source started to fade rapidly. According to the disk instability model, this is close to the critical temperature when a cooling wave is expected to form in the disk, shutting down the outburst. The optical color could be a useful tool to predict decay rates in some X-ray transients. We notice that all X-ray binaries that show mini-outbursts following a main outburst are short orbital period systems ($<$ 7 h). In analogy with another class of short period binaries showing similar mini-outbursts, the cataclysmic variables of the RZ LMi type, we suggest mini-outbursts could occur if there is a hot inner disk at the end of the outburst decay.