The Puzzling Superorbital Period Variation of the Low-mass X-ray Binary 4U 1820-30

Because of the previously observed stability of the 171-day period, the superorbital modulation of the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1820-30 was considered a consequence of a third star orbiting around the binary. This study aims to further verify this triple model by testing the stability of superorbital period using the light curves collected by X-ray sky monitoring/scanning telescopes from 1987 to 2023. Both power spectral and phase analysis results indicate a significant change in the superorbital period from 171 days to 167 days over this 36-year span. The evolution of the superorbital phase suggests that the superorbital period may have experienced an abrupt change between late 2000 and early 2023 or changed gradually with a period derivative of $\dot P_{sup}=(-3.58 \pm 0.72) \times 10^{-4}$ day/day. We conclude that the superorbital period of 4U 1820-30 was not as stable as anticipated by the triple model, which strongly challenges this hypothesis. Instead, we propose an irradiation-induced mass transfer instability scenario to explain the superorbital modulation of 4U 1820-30.