The Galactic Population of Low Mass X-ray Binaries in the Era of Large Sky Surveys

Abstract

Low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) are systems where a star with mass less than two solar masses orbits either a neutron star (NS) or black hole (BH) so closely that mass transfer occurs due to Roche lobe overflow (RLOF). Many of these systems exhibit recurring phases of extremely bright outbursts that peak at X-ray wavelengths, followed by long periods of quiescence. While our current known population of these objects totals only a few hundred, explaining the observed features of the population of LMXBs requires understanding of binary stellar evolution, compact object formation, and accretion physics. Therefore increasing this population, potentially by complementary discovery pathways that have different biases than current X-ray driven methods, could have a significant impact on our understanding of these disparate areas of astrophysics. In this dissertation, I describe my study of LMXBs from both an observational and theoretical perspective, and look ahead to a new era when the Vera Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will transform optical time domain astronomy. In Chapter 2, I describe a search for optical outbursts of LMXBs in the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) alert stream and use a small sample of discovered outbursts to make inferences about the galactic LMXB population, as well as future prospects for a similar search in LSST. In Chapter 3, I use cogsworth to simulate a population of LMXBs and compare their observable properties to our currently known population to learn about binary stellar evolution models. In Chapter 4, I present an exploratory crossmatch between the Rubin Data Preview 1 (DP1), the first publicly available data released by the Vera Rubin Observatory, and describe some challenges for making the multiwavelength associations that are crucial for classifying X-ray emitting sources like LMXBs. In Chapter 5, I summarize the work completed and its place in the context of the start of LSST.