Variable radio emission of neutron star X-ray binary Ser X-1 during its persistent soft state

TL;DR

This study investigates the unexpected radio emissions of the neutron star X-ray binary Ser X-1 during its persistent soft state, revealing variable radio activity inconsistent with typical black hole binary behavior.

Contribution

It provides new radio observations of Ser X-1 during its soft state, showing variable radio emission and challenging existing understanding of neutron star binary radio behavior.

Findings

8 non-detections and 2 detections at 10 GHz

Detected radio flux densities of 19.9 and 32.2 microJy

No polarization detected, ruling out high polarization levels

Abstract

Ser X-1 is a low mass neutron star X-ray binary and has been persistently accreting since its discovery in the 1960s. It has always been observed to be in a soft spectral state and has never showed substantial long-term X-ray variability. Ser X-1 has one previous radio observation in the literature in which radio emission was detected during this soft state, which is contrary to the behavior of black hole X-ray binaries. We have recently obtained 10 randomly sampled radio epochs of Ser X-1 in order to further investigate its anomalous soft state radio emission. Out of 10 epochs, we find 8 non-detections and 2 detections at 10 GHz flux densities of 19.9 +/- 4.2 uJy and 32.2 +/- 3.6 uJy. We do not detect polarization in either epoch, ruling out very high polarization levels (< 63% and 34%). We compare these Ser X-1 results to other X-ray binaries and consider explanations for its long term variable radio behavior.