2008/06/22 by Elena Gallo, Jeroen Homan, J. Homan +4 · 18 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Active galactic nucleus #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Black hole (networking) #Erg #Flux (metallurgy) #Galactic Center #Galaxy #Limiting #Luminosity #Neutron star #Nuclear physics #Observatory #Optics #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Stars #X-ray #X-ray binary #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/591230
published in The Astrophysical Journal 683(1), L51-L54 (IOP Publishing) · Accepted by ApJ as a Letter
arxiv created 2008/06/22 · openalex publication_date 2008/07/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The Galactic black hole X-ray binary XTE J1650–500 entered a quiescent regime following the decline from the 2001-2002 outburst that led to its discovery. Here we report on the first detection of its quiescent counterpart in a 36 ks observation taken in 2007 July with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory . The inferred 0.5-10 keV unabsorbed flux is in the range (2.5-5.0) × 10 −15 erg s −1 cm −2 . Notwithstanding large distance uncertainties, the measured luminosity is comparable to that of the faintest detected black hole X-ray binaries, all having orbital periods close to the expected bifurcation period between j - and n -driven low-mass X-ray binaries. This suggests that a few 10 30 erg s −1 might be a limiting luminosity value for quiescent black holes.