2013MNRAS.428.1335M

We discuss a scenario for the very faint X-ray transients as X-ray binaries fed by winds from detached M dwarf donors in binary stars within the `period gap' - the range of periods where donor stars have become fully convective, and shrunken so that they no longer fill their Roche lobes, but have not yet re-attached due to the systems shrinking through gravitational radiation. This wind-fed detached binary scenario can reproduce the two key properties of the very faint X-ray transients - their faintness, which defines them, and their relatively low duty cycle outbursts which require that they have low mean mass transfer rates. We discuss feasible observational tests of the scenario.