Searching for accreting compact binary systems from spectroscopy and photometry: Application to LAMOST spectra

X Zhao, S Wang, J Liu - The Astrophysical Journal, 2025 - iopscience.iop.org
X Zhao, S Wang, J Liu
The Astrophysical Journal, 2025iopscience.iop.org
Compact objects undergoing mass transfer exhibit significant (and double-peaked) H α
emission lines. Recently, new methods have been developed to identify black hole X-ray
binaries and calculate their systematic parameters using H α line parameters, such as the
full width at half-maximum (FWHM), equivalent width (EW), and separation of double peaks.
In addition, the FWHM–EW plane from spectroscopy and the H α color–color diagram from
photometry can be used for rapid stellar classification. We measure the H α and H β profiles …
Abstract
Compact objects undergoing mass transfer exhibit significant (and double-peaked) H α emission lines. Recently, new methods have been developed to identify black hole X-ray binaries and calculate their systematic parameters using H α line parameters, such as the full width at half-maximum (FWHM), equivalent width (EW), and separation of double peaks. In addition, the FWHM–EW plane from spectroscopy and the H α color–color diagram from photometry can be used for rapid stellar classification. We measure the H α and H β profiles (eg, FWHM and EW) using the LAMOST DR9 low-and medium-resolution spectra, and calculate the systematic parameters (eg, velocity semiamplitude of the donor star, mass ratio, inclination angle, and mass of the accretor). A new correlation between FWHM and K 2, K 2= 0.205 (18) FWHM, is obtained for cataclysmic variables (CVs) in our sample. Both the FWHM–EW plane and the H α color–color diagram can distinguish CVs with FWHM≳ 1000 km s− 1 from Be stars and young stellar objects to some extent. To improve classification accuracy and enhance the selection of compact objects, we propose a new set of idealized filters with effective widths of 30, 130, and 400 Å for the narrow H α filter, broad H α filter, and r-band filter, respectively.
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