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P. Zhao, J.E. McClintock, M.R. Garcia (SAO), R.A. Remillard (MIT)
GRO J0422+32 (= V518 Per) is a black-hole X-ray nova which went into outburst on August 5, 1992. Since then, we have been monitoring the decay light curve of the optical counterpart using the FLWO 1.2-m telescope. Following the steep optical decay of the primary outburst in April 1993, two mini-outbursts were observed with amplitudes of ~4 mag and a separation of 120 days. J0422+32 entered its quiescent state in the summer of 1994 with magnitudes of R~\approx~21 and V~\approx~22. However, there were reports last year that the object may be still exhibiting X-ray activity on a 120-day time scale based on RXTE/ASM data (IAUC 6605, 6738 and 6740). We present complete optical and X-ray light curves for J0422+32 and examine the evidence for any non-quiescent behavior of the source during the past four years.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: zhao@cfa.harvard.edu