Quiescent and Interacting Compact Remnant Binary Populations in the Space Telescope Era

[2608.27792] Quiescent and Interacting Compact Remnant Binary Populations in the Space Telescope Era Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Astrophysics > Solar and Stellar Astrophysics arXiv:2608.27792 (astro-ph) [Submitted on 28 Aug 2026] Title: Quiescent and Interacting Compact Remnant Binary Populations in the Space Telescope Era Authors: Erin Eastep , Jan J. Eldridge , J. C. Bray View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: Since the discovery of Gaia BH1, interest in quiescent binary systems has grown. Two additional black-hole binaries have since been discovered alongside several candidate neutron-star binaries, yet the formation pathways of these systems remain poorly understood. Theoretical studies of these systems, together with the populations into which they evolve, such as X-ray binaries (XRBs), can help constrain their formation channels. We present predictions for the Galactic population of quiescent binary systems and their later evolutionary phases, including XRBs and post-interaction quiescent binaries. We combine stellar models from the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis code (BPASS) with a synthetic Milky Way generated using Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE) simulations. We compare our results with existing observations to assess how well the synthetic population reproduces the observations. We find generally good agreement, with observed donor masses, compact-object masses, and orbital periods largely reproduced, except for the Gaia BH systems. Our results also suggest that some accreting compact remnants with low-mass donors and wide orbital periods may not be X-ray bright. Remaining discrepancies indicate that the BPASS initial parameter space should be expanded, the common-envelope evolution prescription revised, and magnetic braking included in low-mass donor models. We also predict the number of systems detectable in future Gaia data releases and by the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (hereafter referred to as Roman). In particular, the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey is expected to yield a significant population of quiescent black-hole binaries. We predict that ~200-600 candidate quiescent binary systems will be detected in the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey, while ~2500-4000 candidate systems will be identified in Gaia DR5. Comments: Submitted to PASA on 28/08/2026. Posted to arXiv so that predictions for Roman's Galactic Bulge survey are available pre-launch. Synthetic populations will be made available on the BPASS website upon paper acceptance, until then request directly from the authors. The authors also welcome comments Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) ; Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) Cite as: arXiv:2608.27792 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:2608.27792v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.27792 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Erin Eastep [ view email ] [v1] Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:13:46 UTC (2,871 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: astro-ph.SR < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: astro-ph astro-ph.GA astro-ph.HE References & Citations INSPIRE HEP SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. 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