Abstract
Abstract Recently, the black hole X-ray binary (BHXB) Nova Muscae 1991 has been reported to be experiencing an extremely rapid orbital decay. So far, three BHXBs have anomalously high orbital-period derivatives, which cannot be interpreted by the standard stellar evolution theory. In this work, we investigate whether the resonant interaction between the binary and a surrounding circumbinary (CB) disk could produce the observed orbital-period derivatives. Analytical calculations indicate that the observed orbital-period derivatives of XTE J1118+480 and A0620-00 can originate from the tidal torque between the binary and a CB disk with a mass of 10−9 M ⊙, which is approximately in agreement with the dust disk mass detected in these two sources. However, Nova Muscae 1991 was probably surrounded by a heavy CB disk with a mass of 10−7 M ⊙. Based on the CB disk model and the anomalous magnetic braking theory, we simulate the evolution of the three BHXBs with intermediate-mass donor stars by using the MESA code. Our simulated results are approximately consistent with the observed donor-star masses, orbital periods, and orbital-period derivatives. However, the calculated effective temperatures of the donor stars are higher than indicated by the observed spectral types of two sources.
Highlights
Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) are products of collapsing massive stars after they have exhausted all of their nuclear fuel
Code, we consider four types of orbital-angular-momentum loss during the evolution of black hole X-ray binary (BHXB): (1) gravitational-wave radiation; (2) anomalous magnetic braking (AMB): we adopt the same magnetic braking prescription given by Justham et al (2006) and Chen & Podsiadlowski (2016); (3) mass loss: the mass loss from the vicinity of the BH is assumed to be ejected in the form of isotropic winds and to carry away the specific orbital-angularmomentum loss of the BH, while the donor-star winds carry away that of the donor star; (4) tidal torque produced by the interaction between the CB disk and the BHXB
BHXBs can evolve into the three observed sources by comparing the donor-star masses, orbital periods, and orbitalperiod derivatives
Summary
Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) are products of collapsing massive stars after they have exhausted all of their nuclear fuel. Most of them (19 sources) have been defined as BH low-mass X-ray binaries (BHLMXBs) because their donor-star masses are less than 1 Me. Study of BHLMXBs will be of importance in understanding astrophysical process associated with ultra-strong gravitational fields, stellar and binary evolution, and common envelope (CE) evolution (see Li 2015, for a review). The population synthesis predicted a birth rate to be two orders of magnitude lower than that derived from observations (Li 2015) This difference can be solved by adopting an anomalously high CE efficiency parameter (αCE; Kalogera 1999; Kiel & Hurley 2006; Yungelson & Lasota 2008). Most BHs are produced through a failed supernovae mechanism, in which the BH mass is equal to that of the He or CO core mass of the progenitor
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