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Eclipse Timings of the LMXB XTE J1710-281: Orbital Period Glitches

We present an X-ray eclipse timing analysis of the transient low mass X-ray binary XTE J1710-281. We report observations of 57 complete X-ray eclipses, made with the proportional counter array detectors aboard the RXTE satellite. Using the eclipse timing technique, we have derived a constant orbital period of 0.1367109674 (3) d, during the period from MJD 52132 upto MJD 54410; and 1σ limits of -1.6 $\times$ 10^ -12 d d-1 and 0.2 $\times$ 10^ -12 d d-1 , on the period derivative. This puts constraints on the minimum timescale of secular orbital period evolution of 2.34 $\times$ 10^8 yr for a period decay and 18.7 $\times$ 10^8 yr for a period increase. We also report detection of two instances of discontinuity in the mid-eclipse time, one before and one after the above MJD range. These results are interpreted as three distinct epochs of orbital period in XTE J1710-281. We have put lower limits of 1.4 ms and 0.9 ms on orbital period change at successive epochs.