Optical variability history of ASKAP J1448−6856

Determine whether the optical variability observed for ASKAP J1448−6856 (in the DECam and SkyMapper epochs) was driven by flaring episodes, orbital modulation, or both, and reconstruct the detailed temporal history of this variability.

Background

The optical light curve shows a bright, blue phase followed by a decline to a quiescent state, with intermittent non-detections and variability across filters. Lesedi observations place limits on possible orbital modulation, but data sparsity prevents a definitive interpretation.

Clarifying the origin and timeline of the optical variability is key to constraining the system geometry and accretion state, and to testing proposed binary scenarios.

References

Given the sparse data set, we can not conclusively establish the history of this optical variation, but once the source settled to its quiescent state (end of DECaPS observations), our Leesedi observations constrained the peak brightness due to orbital variation (if any) to g≥22.0.

— ASKAP J144834-685644: a newly discovered long period radio transient detected from radio to X-rays (2507.13453 - Anumarlapudi et al., 17 Jul 2025) in Section 3.2, Optical burst