We report on the long-term average spin period, rate of change of spin period and X-ray luminosity during outbursts for 42 Be X-ray binary systems in the Small Magellanic Cloud. We also collect and calculate parameters of each system and use these data to determine that all systems contain a neutron star which is accreting via a disc, rather than a wind, and that if these neutron stars are near spin equilibrium, then over half of them, including all with spin periods over about 100 s, have magnetic fields over the quantum critical level of 4.4×10 13 G. If these neutron stars are not close to spin equilibrium, then their magnetic fields are inferred to be much lower, of the order of 10 6 -10 10 G, comparable to the fields of neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries. Both results are unexpected and have implications for the rate of magnetic field decay and the isolated neutron star population.

Gamma-ray binaries consist of a neutron star or a black hole interacting with a normal star to produce gamma-ray emission that dominates the radiative output of the system. Only a handful of such systems have been previously discovered, all within our Galaxy. Here we report the discovery with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) of a luminous gamma-ray binary in the Large Magellanic Cloud from a search for periodic modulation in all sources in the third Fermi LAT catalog. This is the first such system to be found outside the Milky Way. The system has an orbital period of 10.3 days and is associated with a massive O5III star located in the supernova remnant DEM L241, previously identified as the candidate high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB) CXOU J053600.0-673507. X-ray and radio emission are also modulated on the 10.3 day period, but are in anti-phase with the gamma-ray modulation. Optical radial velocity measurements suggest that the system contains a neutron star. The source is significantly more luminous than similar sources in the Milky Way at radio, optical, X-ray and gamma-ray wavelengths. The detection of this extra-galactic system, but no new Galactic systems raises the possibility that the predicted number of gamma-ray binaries in our Galaxy have been overestimated, and that HMXBs may be born containing relatively slowly rotating neutron stars.

The orbital motion of a neutron star about its optical companion presents a window through which we can study the orbital parameters of that binary system. This has been used extensively in the Milky Way to calculate these parameters for several high‐mass X‐ray binaries. Using several years of Rossi X‐ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array data, we derive the orbital parameters of four Be/X‐ray binary systems in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), increasing the number of systems with orbital solutions by a factor of 3. We find one new orbital period, confirm a second and discuss the parameters with comparison to the Galactic systems. Despite the low metallicity in the SMC, these binary systems sit amongst the Galactic distribution of orbital periods and eccentricities, suggesting that metallicity may not play an important role in the evolution of high‐mass X‐ray binary systems. A plot of orbital period against eccentricity shows that the supergiant, Be and low‐eccentricity OB transient systems occupy separate regions of the parameter space; akin to the separated regions on the Corbet diagram. Using a Spearman’s rank correlation test, we also find a possible correlation between the two parameters. The mass functions, inclinations and orbital semimajor axes are derived for the SMC systems based on the binary parameters and the spectral classification of the optical counterpart. As a by‐product of our work, we present a catalogue of the orbital parameters for every high‐mass X‐ray binary in the Galaxy and Magellanic Clouds for which they are known.

On 2016 July 30 (MJD 57599), observations of the Small Magellanic Cloud by Swift/XRT found an increase in X-ray counts coming from a position consistent with the Be/X-ray binary pulsar SMC X-3. Follow-up observations on 2016 August 3 (MJD 57603) and 2016 August 10 (MJD 57610) revealed a rapidly increasing count rate and confirmed the onset of a new X-ray outburst from the system. Further monitoring by Swift began to uncover the enormity of the outburst, which peaked at 1.2 × 10 39 erg/s on 2016 August 25 (MJD 57625). The system then began a gradual decline in flux that was still continuing over 5 months after the initial detection. We explore the X-ray and optical behaviour of SMC X-3 between 2016 July 30 and 2016 December 18 during this super-Eddington outburst. We apply a binary model to the spin-period evolution that takes into account the complex accretion changes over the outburst, to solve for the orbital parameters. Our results show SMC X-3 to be a system with a moderately low eccentricity amongst the Be/X-ray binary systems and to have a dynamically determined orbital period statistically consistent with the prominent period measured in the OGLE optical light curve. Our optical and X-ray derived ephemerides show that the peak in optical flux occurs roughly 6 days after periastron. The measured increase in I-band flux from the counterpart during the outburst is reflected in the measured equivalent width of the H α line emission, though the H α emission itself seems variable on sub-day time-scales, possibly due to the NS interacting with an inhomogeneous disc.

We present 11 detections of FRB 121102 in ∼3 h of observations during its ‘active’ period on the 10th of 2019 September. The detections were made using the newly deployed MeerTRAP system and single pulse detection pipeline at the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. Fortuitously, the Nançay radio telescope observations on this day overlapped with the last hour of MeerKAT observations and resulted in four simultaneous detections. The observations with MeerKAT’s wide band receiver, which extends down to relatively low frequencies (900–1670 MHz usable L-band range), have allowed us to get a detailed look at the complex frequency structure, intensity variations, and frequency-dependent sub-pulse drifting. The drift rates we measure for the full-band and sub-banded data are consistent with those published between 600 and 6500 MHz with a slope of −0.147 ± 0.014 ms−1. Two of the detected bursts exhibit fainter ‘precursors’ separated from the brighter main pulse by ∼28 and ∼34 ms. A follow-up multi-telescope campaign on the 6th and 8th of 2019 October to better understand these frequency drifts and structures over a wide and continuous band was undertaken. No detections resulted, indicating that the source was ‘inactive’ over a broad frequency range during this time.