SDSS J0926+3624: The shortest period eclipsing binary star

Understand

With orbital periods of the order of tens of minutes or less, the AM Canum Venaticorum stars are ultracompact, hydrogen deficient binaries with the shortest periods of any binary subclass, and are expected to be among the strongest gravitational wave sources in the sky.

• To date, the only known eclipsing source of this type is the P = 28 min binary SDSS J0926+3624.
• We present multiband, high time resolution light curves of this system, collected with WHT/ULTRACAM in 2006 and 2009.
• We supplement these data with additional observations made with LT/RISE, XMM_Newton and the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey.