Paul Biswajit (Raman Research Institute, India)

Orbital evolution of X-ray binaries: prospects with LOFT

The orbits of X-ray binaries evolve due to different types of interactions between the components of the
binary system and/or mass loss through wind. Accurate measurement of orbital evolution of X-ray binaries is
therefore, useful to understand the evolution of compact binary systems. Recently, we have obtained some
interesting orbital evolution measurements of a few eclipsing low mass X-ray binaries. We will discuss the
interesting aspects of these X-ray binaries that is learnt from the orbital evolution measurements. LOFT
observations will allow orbital evolution measurements to be carried out with much higher accuracy and on a
larger number of sources enabling some key diagnostics. We will present the prospects of orbital evolution
measurements with both the instruments of LOFT, LAD and WFM.