Ultra-compact X-ray binaries with He star companions

Abstract

Ultra-compact X-ray binaries (UCXBs) are low-mass X-ray binaries with hydrogen-deficient mass-donors and ultra-short orbital periods. They have been suggested to be the potential Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) sources in the low-frequency region. Several channels for the formation of UCXBs have been proposed so far. In this article, we carried out a systematic study on the He star donor channel, in which a neutron star (NS) accretes matter from a He main-sequence star through Roche-lobe overflow, where the mass-transfer is driven by the gravitational wave radiation. Firstly, we followed the long-term evolution of the NS+He main-sequence star binaries by employing the stellar evolution code Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics, and thereby obtained the initial parameter spaces for the production of UCXBs. We then used these results to perform a detailed binary population synthesis approach to obtain the Galactic rates of UCXBs through this channel. We estimate the Galactic rates of UCXBs appearing as LISA sources to be ∼ 3.1 − 11.9 × 10 −6 yr −1 through this channel, and the number of such UCXB-LISA sources in the Galaxy can reach about 100 − 390. The present work indicates that the He star donor channel cannot be ignored in forming UCXB-LISA sources. We found that the evolutionary tracks of UCXBs through this channel can account for the location of the five transient sources with relatively long orbital periods quite well. We also found that such UCXBs can be identified by their locations in the period-mass transfer rate diagram.