Characterizing the Periodic Infrared Brightening Events of GX17+2: A Precessing Synchrotron Jet?

Details Characterizing the Periodic Infrared Brightening Events of GX17+2: A Precessing Synchrotron Jet? Characterizing the Periodic Infrared Brightening Events of GX17+2: A Precessing Synchrotron Jet?

Apr 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009sptz.prop60086h&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #60086

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Scientific paper

GX17+2 is a low mass X-ray binary, and one of the brightest X-ray sources in the sky. It is also a 'Z Source' so named by the path this small family of objects traces out in the X-ray color-color diagram. This Z-pattern is believed to occur due to the changing rate of accretion, which is normally quite close to the Eddington limit for a neutron star. GX17+2 seems to be a normal member of this class of object, with stochastic X-ray and radio variations. The one exception to this is that the infrared counterpart shows four magnitude variations in the K-band. Even more peculiar is that these 'outbursts' are periodic and recur every 3.01 days! Unfortunately, GX17+2 is highly reddened (Av > 19) and is not detectable at other ground-based wavelengths. Thus, we cannot conclusively identify the nature of these outbursts, but our radio observations show that it is radio loud during these infrared events. This suggests that we are seeing a precessing synchrotron jet. While there is evidence for precessing jets in other X-ray binaries, such a short precession period is unprecedented. We propose to obtain simultaneous K-band and IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 micron observations of GX17+2 during two IR bright phases to allow us to deconvolve the reddening and spectrum of the source to allow us to confirm whether these outbursts are from optically thin synchrotron emission. Such jets are expected to be highly variable, and the short exposure times offered by Spitzer will allow us to characterize this variability. The proposed program requires 3.6 hr.

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