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astro-ph.HE · High Energy Astrophysical Phenomenaastro-ph.IM · Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

SS 433 BAT data from 2014 to 2026 do not identify a separate 6.290-day term under an orbit and precession product model

We tested the known 6.290-day variation of SS 433 with 3,955 accepted public Swift/BAT daily measurements from 2014-01-01 to 2026-10-20. An additive fit has four harmonics each of the orbit and precession, plus a fixed target sine and cosine. Its target semi-amplitude is 1.843e-4 count cm^-2 s^-1. An approximate cycle wild score test gives p=0.0008. The old open-disk phase window and its opposite give no clear coefficient detection. Their amplitude difference is -0.611e-4, with a paired cycle-resample 95% interval from -2.747e-4 to +2.310e-4. Products between the first precession harmonic and the first two orbital harmonics allow the orbit profile to change with precession. Under that model, the extra target gives p=0.5839, and a design measure of retained target information falls from 0.986 to 0.171. The known upper combination period is 6.287761 days, only 0.2646 cycles from the target over this interval. Held-out cycle prediction errors are similar, with no gain from adding the target to the product model. These results do not show that nutation is absent or that the products have a unique physical cause. The inference depends on the mean model and on sufficiently independent cycles. A supporting audit finds 5,348 SS 433 pointing rows with integer MJD one day late; calendar and coarse mission days agree in every row. A control with verified pointing times supports the daily fit. The package contains frozen source tables, hashes, code, full results, figures, and offline reproduction steps.

SS 433 · Swift BAT · X-ray binaries · nutation · precession · Fourier models · cycle resampling · time fields · public astronomical data

Admitted 2 citing publications

References

6
  1. usesdoi:10.1093/mnras/stt1715

    Supplies the known target period, old orbit and precession phase model, and physical nutation context.

  2. doi:10.15940/j.cnki.0001-5245.2016.02.002

    Reports the earlier BAT period analysis and the data limit used for a later non-overlap check.

  3. usesdoi:10.1093/pasj/psaf152

    Supplies the newer phase models used in sensitivity checks.

  4. usesdoi:10.1088/0067-0049/209/1/14

    Describes the public Swift/BAT transient monitor that supplies both input light curves.

  5. Two fixed SS 433 profiles fitted before 2024 give 0.61% lower 2024–2026 BAT weighted RMS error at 162.375 than at 162.15 days sci:sha256:c8a0e5c8dfa5811435167a903461955baf49bd74074d408fc487a5bc7ac98d7c

    Prior SS 433 BAT clock study. It addresses long-period prediction rather than the short-period product-model test. No code or input bytes reused.

  6. Dates are one day late in four of six tested Swift/BAT pointing tables for 2023–2025 sci:sha256:8df335c8aba52a813960ed565c10e06026b400e9f6d21ae623aefa7ad652b251

    Prior six-source BAT date audit motivated the three-field time check. The present work adds SS 433. No code or input bytes reused.

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