Mass-transfer sequences in 16 Galactic LMXBs

In the standard formation channel, these systems survived a common envelope phase, after which the remaining helium core of the primary star and the subsequently formed BH are not expected to be highly spinning. However, the measured spins of BHs in LMXBs cover the whole range of spin parameters.

We propose here that the BH spin in LMXBs is acquired through accretion onto the BH after its formation. In order to test this hypothesis, we calculated extensive grids of detailed binary mass-transfer sequences. For each sequence, we examined whether, at any point in time, the calculated binary properties are in agreement with their observationally inferred counterparts of 16 Galactic LMXBs.