The X-ray binary X2127+119 in M15: evidence for a very low mass, stripped-giant companion

van Zyl, L.; Charles, P. A.; Arribas, S.; Naylor, T.; Mediavilla, E.; Hellier, C.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 350, Issue 2, pp. 649-656.

Advertised on:
5
2004
Number of authors
6
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
17
Refereed citations
13
Description
We present integral field spectroscopy of X2127+119, the luminous X-ray binary in the globular cluster M15, obtained with INTEGRAL/WYFFOS on the William Herschel Telescope. We find that tomograms of HeIIλ4686 line profiles appear to be incompatible with the previously assumed view of X2127+119, in which the binary consists of a 1.4-Msolar neutron star and a 0.8-Msolar subgiant companion near the main-sequence turn-off for M15. Our data imply a much smaller mass ratio M2/MX of ~0.1. We find that models of X2127+119 with black hole compact objects give a poor fit to our data, while a neutron-star compact object is consistent with the data, implying that the companion of X2127+119 may have a much lower mass (~0.1 Msolar) than previously assumed. As a ~0.1-Msolar main-sequence star would be unable to fill its Roche lobe in a binary with the orbital period of X2127+119 (17.1 h), the companion is likely to be the remnant of a significantly more massive star which has had most of its envelope stripped away.