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Finding periods in the high mass x-ray binary stars of the magellanic clouds

High Mass X-Ray Binary Stars (HMXBs) are stars that contain one early-type
main sequence or giant star and one of a black hole, neutron star or white dwarf.
HMXBs in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud
(SMC) are instructive to study because both galaxies are metal poor in compari-
son to the Milky Way and they are fairly transparent to both optical and X-ray
radiation. This allows a more complete study of the whole population, without the
biasing effects of gas and dust that occur in our own Galaxy. The objective of this
study was to find the periods of HMXBs in the LMC and SMC with known optical
counterparts in the dataset acquired by the Robotic Optical Transient Search Ex-
periment telescope. Two possible orbital periods were found for the objects XTE
J0055-724 and RX J0101.3-7211 of 1724 days and 478 days, respectively. Continued
observations are recommended to conrm the two periods.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-12132010-145006
Date26 April 2011
CreatorsBriand, Lorin Michel Pierre
ContributorsSarty, Gordon, Ghezelbash, Masoud, Smolyakov, Andrei, Koustov, Sasha
PublisherUniversity of Saskatchewan
Source SetsUniversity of Saskatchewan Library
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-12132010-145006/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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