Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Scientific paper
2009-02-17
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Accepted for publication in MNRAS-Letters; 5 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. Quality of figure 2 downgraded because of arXiv file
Scientific paper
In a multiwavelength program dedicated to identifying optical counterparts of faint persistent X-ray sources in the Galactic Bulge, we find an accurate X-ray position of SAX J1712.6-3739 through Chandra observations, and discover its faint optical counterpart using our data from EFOSC2 on the ESO 3.6m telescope. We find this source to be a highly extincted neutron star LMXB with blue optical colours. We serendipitously discover a relatively bright and large bow shock shaped nebula in our deep narrowband H alpha imaging, most likely associated with the X-ray binary. A nebula like this has never been observed before in association with a LMXB, and as such provides a unique laboratory to study the energetics of accretion and jets. We put forward different models to explain the possible ways the LMXB may form this nebulosity, and outline how they can be confirmed observationally.
Degenaar Nathalie
Heinz Sebastian
Klein-Wolt Marc
Read Andrew M.
Russell David M.
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