Eclipse Timings of the LMXB XTE J1710-281 : Discovery of a third orbital period glitch

TL;DR

This study updates the orbital period evolution of the LMXB XTE J1710-281, discovering a third orbital period glitch and providing new measurements that enhance understanding of its orbital dynamics and potential astrophysical causes.

Contribution

The paper reports the discovery of a third orbital period glitch in XTE J1710-281 and provides the most robust estimates of the second glitch's occurrence, using extensive eclipse timing data.

Findings

Detected a third orbital period glitch with high statistical significance.

Identified four distinct epochs of orbital period in the system.

Placed lower limits on the magnitude of orbital period changes.

Abstract

We present an updated measurement of orbital period evolution of LMXB XTE J1710-281 by using eclipse timing technique. Using data obtained with XMM-Newton, Suzaku, RXTE, Chandra and AstroSat observatories, we report 21 new measurements of X-ray mid-eclipse times. We have discovered a third orbital period glitch in XTE J1710-281 with an F-test false alarm probability of ~0.7% for occurrence of the third glitch and report detection of four distinct epochs of orbital period in this system. This work presents a more robust estimation of occurrence of the second orbital period glitch. However, the epoch of occurrence of the third glitch is poorly constrained, between MJD 55726 to 56402. We have put lower limits of 1.48 ms, 0.97 ms and 0.45 ms, on sudden changes in orbital period between the successive epochs. We discuss the implications of our findings in context of magnetic nature of the companion star and possible scattering events with circum-binary objects around this binary system.