# X-ray Nova XTE J1550-564: Optical Observations

## 1 Introduction

Soft X-ray transients, also called X-ray novae (XN), are mass transferring binaries in which long periods of quiescence (when the X-ray luminosity is $`10^{33}`$ergs s<sup>-1</sup>) are occasionally interrupted by luminous X-ray and optical outbursts (Tanaka & Shibazaki 1996). X-ray novae are unique objects since they provide the most compelling evidence for the existence of stellar mass black holes (Cowley 1992). Using optical photometry and spectroscopy, eight XN have been shown to contain a black hole, (van Paradijs & McClintock 1995; Bailyn et al. 1998; Orosz et al. 1998a) since the mass of the primary exceeds the maximum stable limit of a neutron star ($`3M_{\mathrm{}}`$, Chitre & Hartle 1976).

The soft X-ray transient XTE J1550-564 was discovered with the All Sky Monitor (ASM ; Levine et al. 1996) on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) on September 6, 1998 (Smith et al. 1998). This object became the brightest X-ray nova yet observed by RXTE (Remillard et al. 1998b). A high frequency QPO at $`185`$ Hz has been observed on two well separated occasions (McClintock et al. 1998; Remillard et al. 1999). Although the true nature of this object has yet to be confirmed, XTE J1550-564 is likely to be a black hole based on its characteristic soft X-ray spectrum and the hard power law tail (Sobczak et al. 1999), and high frequency QPOs (Remillard et al. 1999).

Shortly after the X-ray discovery the optical counterpart was identified within the RXTE error box (Orosz, Bailyn & Jain 1998). We present optical light curves obtained during the outburst of XTE J1550-564 as part of a multi-wavelength campaign. The spectral analysis of the RXTE PCA data as well as the ASM light curve and a timing study based on the same RXTE observations are presented in companion papers (Sobczak et al. 1999 and Remillard et al. 1999; hereafter paper I and paper II, respectively).

Although much can be learned about XN by studying the X-ray data alone, simultaneous optical observations can provide tighter constraints for various accretion disk models. For example, optical, UV and X-ray data obtained during quiescence of several BHXN have been used to demonstrate the successful application of the advection dominated accretion flow (ADAF) model, whereas thermal emission from a thin disk model is inconsistent with these observations (Narayan et al. 1996, 1997a,b). Furthermore, the six day time delay between the optical and X-ray outbursts of GRO J1655-40 observed in April 1996 (Orosz et al. 1997) has also been successfully modeled by an accretion flow consisting of a cold outer disk and a hot inner ADAF region (Hameury et al. 1997). The extensive X-ray and optical coverage of the outburst of XTE J1550-564 provides further opportunities to test accretion disk models and ADAF models in particular. We report below our optical observations, data reductions, and results.

## 2 Observations and Reductions

We obtained photometry using the Yale 1m telescope at CTIO, which is currently operated by the YALO (Yale, AURA, Lisbon, Ohio State) consortium. This telescope is ideally suited for observing X-ray transients and other objects which require continuous long-term monitoring. Data are taken every clear night by two permanent staff observers, and observations are requested by a queue which can be changed quickly in response to discoveries. The data reported here were acquired using the ANDICAM optical/IR camera which contains a TEK $`2048\times 2048`$ CCD with $`10.2\times 10.2`$ arcmin<sup>2</sup> field of view with a scale of 0.3 arcsec pixel<sup>-1</sup>. The IR array was not available at the time of our observations.

On September 8.99 (UT), we obtained images of two fields in response to the announcement of the initial detection of XTE J1550-564 by RXTE (Smith et al. 1998). For each field a 60 second and a 300 second exposure was obtained in both $`V`$ and $`I`$. The 300 second $`V`$ band images were compared to images of the same regions extracted from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) CD ROM set (Sturch et al. 1993). We identified a $`V16`$ star as the optical counterpart, since it appeared in all of the CCD images we obtained, but not in the DSS image (Orosz, Bailyn, & Jain 1998 — see Figure 1). There were several HST guide stars in the CCD image, which allowed us to determine the J2000 coordinates of $`\alpha =15^\mathrm{h}50^\mathrm{m}58\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}78`$, $`\delta =56^{}28^{}35\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$, with errors of $`2^{\prime \prime }`$. The quoted error corresponds to the maximum systematic error present in the HST Guide Star Catalog (Russell et al. 1990). A variable radio source detected on September 9 at a position consistent with that of the optical transient (Campbell-Wilson et al. 1998). Finally, spectroscopic confirmation came on September 16, when Castro-Tirado et al. (1998) showed that the optical variable had emission lines of H, He II, and N III, typical of X-ray transients in outburst.

We observed the source on all nights for which weather and instrumentation permitted between September 8.99 to October 26.9, 1998, when the object was no longer observable in the night sky (see Figure 2). The exposure times were 120-300 seconds for $`V`$ and $`I`$, 300-600 seconds for $`B`$. The seeing varied from night to night ranging from 1.3 to 3 arcseconds, with a typical value of 1.7 arcseconds. A time series of the optical data was obtained using the IRAF versions of DAOPHOT and ALLSTAR and the stand-alone code DAOMASTER (Stetson 1987; Stetson, Davis, & Crabtree 1991; Stetson 1992a, 1992b). The DAOPHOT instrumental magnitudes were calibrated to the standard scales using standard stars from the list of Landolt (1992).

## 3 The Quiescent Optical Counterpart

The Royal Observatory Edinburgh (ROE) maintains a large archive of photographic plates of Southern sky fields taken with the UK Schmidt telescope located at the Anglo-Australian Observatory. There are ten plates on which the XTE J1550-564 field was well-centered and the exposure times were fairly long. Sue Tritton of the ROE kindly examined these ten plates and photographed the $`4\times 4`$ arcminute regions surrounding the positions of XTE J1550-564. The best quality plate is No. J2977 from March 20, 1977, which is the atlas plate for the SERC J survey. A print of this plate was scanned using the Yale PDS-microdensitometer at a resolution of 0.3 arcseconds/pixel. There is a faint star close to the position of XTE J1550-564 (see Figure 1). We used the pixel coordinates of several bright comparison stars to determine the coordinate transformation between the CCD image and the scanned image. Based on this transformation, we find that the faint star in the scanned image is within 0.5 arcseconds of the position of XTE J1550-564. Hence this star is most likely the quiescent optical counterpart, although we can not completely rule out the possibility that it is an unrelated field star. We performed aperture photometry of this faint star and several comparison stars in the scanned image and determined a $`B`$ magnitude of $`B=22.0\pm 0.5`$ for the faint counterpart. This error represents the scatter in the differences between the calibrated magnitudes of the comparison stars and the magnitudes obtained from the scanned photographic image. The quiescent counterpart is not visible on any of the the remaining nine plates, all of which have limiting magnitudes of $`21`$.

The amplitude of the outburst thus appears to be $`4`$ magnitudes, although this could be larger if the star appearing on the SERC J plate is not the actual quiescent counterpart. The outburst amplitude is intermediate between the relatively small optical outbursts seen in X-ray novae with early type (F and A) companions like GRO J1655-40 and 4U1543-47 (Bailyn et al. 1995; Orosz et al. 1998a) and the much larger outbursts seen in systems with later spectral types (van Paradijs & McClintock 1995). If this pattern holds, one may expect the secondary of XTE J1550-56 to be a main-sequence G star or perhaps an evolved giant. For main sequence companions, Shahbaz & Kuulkers (1998) propose an empirical formula relating the orbital period to the outburst magnitude, which yields $`P23`$ hours for this case.

## 4 The Outburst Light Curve

The optical magnitude of XTE J1550-564 varied much less during our observing period than the X-ray flux (see Figure 2). During the span of 49 days that we have data for XTE J1550-564, the optical brightness in $`B`$, $`V`$ and $`I`$ dropped by $`1.5`$ magnitudes and the daily fluctuations were less than $`0.15`$ magnitude between any two adjacent nights. In general, the $`B`$, $`V`$, and $`I`$ magnitudes decayed steadily with the exception of an optical flare near September 21, which occurred approximately one day after the X-ray flare. There is also a seven day plateau lasting from approximately October 15 to October 21, during which the $`I`$ magnitude fluctuated by less than 0.03 magnitudes (the $`B`$ and $`V`$ magnitudes also fluctuated much less during this period compared to the previous seven days).

The general features of the optical and X-ray light curves can be compared with other LMXBs using the classifications by Chen, Shrader & Livio (1997). Based on their classification, the exponentially decaying optical light curve of XTE J1550-564 with an e-folding time of $`30`$ days can be described as a possible FRED (light curves that have either a Fast-Rise or an Exponential Decay). In fact, most optical light curves of LMXBs are best described as possible FREDs, although the average e-folding time of 67.6 days (Chen, Shrader, & Livio 1997) is longer than what we find for XTE J1550-564. Curiously, the optical decay is not correlated with the ASM X-ray light curve, which remains fairly constant after the flare.

Before we can compare properties such as the average intrinsic color and ratio of the X-ray to optical flux of XTE J1550-564 to those of other LMXBs, we must correct for interstellar reddening. The reddening can be estimated from the average expected values of $`N_H`$ which can be derived from the HI map by Dicky & Lockman (1990), in this case by using the FTOOLS routine nh. We obtained $`N_H9\times 10^{21}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup>, which yields an estimate of $`A_V=5.0`$ assuming the relation between $`N_H`$ and $`A_V`$ of Predehl & Schmitt (1995). The Dicky & Lockman (1990) map represents the column density to infinity, and thus might be an overestimate for a galactic source embedded in the plane. However, the tentative distance of 6 kpc suggested in paper I places the source 200pc below the plane, well out of the galactic dust layer. We note that the X-ray spectral analysis yields values of $`N_H`$ about twice as large as is suggested by the HI maps — this may indicate self-absorption in the source.

Using the conventional relationship $`A_V=3.1\times E(BV)`$ (Savage & Mathis 1979), we find $`E(BV)=1.6`$. This implies an intrinsic color of $`(BV)_0=0.25\pm 0.04`$ right after the flare, consistent with the average value of $`0.09\pm 0.14`$ for a sample of LMXBs obtained by van Paradijs & McClintock (1995). Note that the much larger reddening implied by the X-ray column density in the absence of self-absorption results in an implausibly blue intrinsic color for XTE J1550-564. Using $`A_V=5.0`$, we find an optical to X-ray flux ratio of $`450`$ during the flare, comparable to the average value of 500 found by van Paradijs & McClintock (1995). This estimate assumes a flat optical spectrum between $`3000\AA `$ and $`7000\AA `$, and a 2-20 keV X-ray flux derived from the spectral decomposition described in paper I.

The optical response to the large X-ray flare which occurred near Sept. 21 (see paper I) was quite muted, with an amplitude of $`0.2`$ magnitudes. The (V-I) color increased during the flare, meaning the optical outburst was redder than during the decay (see Figure 2). On the other hand, the ASM hardness ratio (HR2, defined as the ratio of ASM count rates between 5 to 12 keV band and 3 to 5 keV bands) increased, meaning the X-ray light curve was “bluer” during the flare (see paper I for details). Although detailed spectral information about the optical flare is unavailable, the color and hardness ratios indicate a change in the spectrum across a wide range of wavelengths during the flare.

The optical response to the flare is delayed by about a day relative to the X-rays. To quantify this delay, we parameterized the light curves as described below. The fits are not perfect, and somewhat different results can be obtained with different fitting schemes. However the qualitative relations between the different light curves persist no matter how the data are described. We fit the ASM flare with a Lorentzian with a centroid of $`51,076.2\pm 0.1`$ and a FWHM of $`1.5`$ days (for convenience we express time in days in the units of MJD=JD-2,400,000.5, where MJD 51,075 is September 19, 1998). We estimated the centroid and FWHM of the optical flare using a Gaussian to fit the flare and a linear component to fit the decay. We determined the centroids for the $`B`$, $`V`$, and $`I`$ bands to be $`51,077.3\pm 0.2`$, $`51,077.05\pm 0.02`$, $`51,077.05\pm 0.03`$, respectively, all of which occur approximately one day later than the X-ray peak as noted above. There is no significant offset between the times of the peaks of the optical flare in the $`B`$, $`V`$, and $`I`$ light curves. In contrast, the duration of the optical event varied strongly with filter. One self-consistent solution yields the following values of FWHM for $`B`$, $`V`$, and $`I`$ respectively: $`2.1\pm 0.5`$, $`1.6\pm 0.1`$, and $`1.6\pm 0.05`$ days. The relationship between the X-ray and optical flares is in dramatic contrast to the onset of the April 1996 outburst of GRO J1655-40, described by Orosz et al. (1997), in which the optical event preceded the X-rays by six days. That event was interpreted (Hameury et al. 1997) as an “outside-in” instability in the accretion disk. The flare in XTE J1550-564, on the other hand, appears to have begun deep in the accretion flow, and subsequently propagated outwards.

## 5 Summary

We have identified the optical counterpart of XTE J1550-564, and analyzed the B, V and I light curves from September 8.99 to October 26.9, 1998. We find that the X-ray and optical light curves are poorly correlated. The large X-ray flare was followed a day later by a small ($`0.2`$ mag) increase in the optical brightness. The tentative identification of a quiescent counterpart in sky survey images suggests that it will be possible to measure the mass function of the object after it has returned to quiescence.

We thank the two YALO observers, David Gonzalez Huerta and Juan Espinoza, for providing data in a timely manner. We also thank Sue Tritton of the ROE for her help with the archival plates and John Lee, Terry Girard, and Imants Platais for assistance with the Yale PDS scanner. We would like to thank Suzanne Tourtellotte and Elene Terry for their assistance with data reduction. Financial support for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation through grant AST-9730774.