MAXI J0709-159: Radio upper limit from MeerKAT
ATel #15209; Lauren Rhodes, Jakob van den Eijnden, Rob Fender (University of Oxford), Patrick Woudt (University of Cape Town), James Miller-Jones (Curtin University), on behalf of the ThunderKAT collaboration
on 7 Feb 2022; 12:19 UT
Credential Certification: Jakob Van den Eijnden (a.j.vandeneijnden@uva.nl)
Subjects: Radio, Transient
MAXI J0709-159 was detected by the MAXI/GSC nova alert system as an uncatalogued X-ray transient on 2022-01-25 10:42:29 (UTC, ATel #15178). ToO observations with NuSTAR performed on 2022-01-29 (Atel #15193) found that MAXI J0709-159 was spatially consistent with the Be star HD 54786 (aka Ly CMa), confirming it to be a Be X-ray binary.
As part of the ThunderKAT Large Survey Programme (Fender et al. 2017, arXiv:1711.04132), we observed the Be X-ray binary MAXI J0709-159 under the X-ray binary monitoring programme with MeerKAT on 2022-01-31 21:16:59.6 (UTC), 6.4 days after the first detection of an X-ray flare. MAXI J0709-159 was observed for 15 minutes, preceded J0408-6545, the bandpass and absolute flux calibrator and book-ended by J0735-1735, the phase calibrator. The observation was made at a central frequency of 1.28 GHz with a bandwidth of 856 MHz. We do not detect any radio emission at the position of MAXI J0709-159 and report a 3-sigma upper limit of 57uJy.
ThunderKAT will run for 5 years and targets X-ray binaries, Cataclysmic Variables, Supernovae and Gamma-Ray Bursts. As part of this programme, we perform weekly monitoring observations of all bright, active, southern hemisphere X-ray binaries in the radio band. For further information on this programme please contact Rob Fender and/or Patrick Woudt.
We thank Joe Bright in the ThunderKAT collaboration for scheduling the observing blocks and the staff at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) for their rapid scheduling of these observations. The MeerKAT telescope is operated by SARAO, which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Technology.
