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arXiv · 2406.06725

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

E. C. Pattie·T. J. Maccarone·A. J. Tetarenko·J. C. A. Miller-Jones·M. Pichardo Marcano·L. E. Rivera Sandoval
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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.

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E. C. Pattie, T. J. Maccarone, A. J. Tetarenko, J. C. A. Miller-Jones, M. Pichardo Marcano, L. E. Rivera Sandoval. 2024-06-10. Variable radio emission of neutron star X-ray binary Ser X-1 during its persistent soft state. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.06725

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