scholarly journals X-ray variability of the HMXB Cen X-3: evidence for inhomogeneous accretion flows.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
G Sanjurjo-Ferrín ◽  
J M Torrejón ◽  
K Postnov ◽  
L Oskinova ◽  
J J Rodes-Roca ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Equivalent Width ◽  
Compact Star ◽  
Timing Analysis ◽  
Roche Lobe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Emission Lines ◽  
High Mass ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Accretion Flows ◽  
Inner Radius

Abstract Cen X-3 is a compact high mass X-ray binary likely powered by Roche lobe overflow. We present a phase-resolved X-ray spectral and timing analysis of two pointed XMM-Newton observations. The first one took place during a normal state of the source, when it has a luminosity LX ∼ 1036 erg s−1. This observation covered orbital phases φ = 0.00 − 0.37, i.e. the egress from the eclipse. The egress lightcurve is highly structured, showing distinctive intervals. We argue that different intervals correspond to the emergence of different emitting structures. The lightcurve analysis enables us to estimate the size of such structures around the compact star, the most conspicuous of which has a size ∼0.3R*, of the order of the Roche lobe radius. During the egress, the equivalent width of Fe emission lines, from highly ionized species, decreases as the X-ray continuum grows. On the other hand, the equivalent width of the Fe Kα line, from near neutral Fe, strengthens. This line is likely formed due to the X-ray illumination of the accretion stream. The second observation was taken when the source was 10 times X-ray brighter and covered the orbital phases φ = 0.36 − 0.80. The X-ray lightcurve in the high state shows dips. These dips are not caused by absorption but can be due to instabilities in the accretion stream. The typical dip duration, of about 1000 s, is much longer than the timescale attributed to the accretion of the clumpy stellar wind of the massive donor star, but is similar to the viscous timescale at the inner radius of the accretion disk.

scholarly journals Mass transfer on a nuclear timescale in models of supergiant and ultra-luminous X-ray binaries

2019 ◽  
Vol 628 ◽  
pp. A19 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Quast ◽  
N. Langer ◽  
T. M. Tauris
Keyword(s):  
Mass Transfer ◽  
Black Hole ◽  
Neutron Star ◽  
Roche Lobe ◽  
High Mass ◽  
X Rays ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Mass Ratios ◽  
X Ray Binaries ◽  
Eddington Limit

Context. The origin and number of the Galactic supergiant X-ray binaries is currently not well understood. They consist of an evolved massive star and a neutron star or black-hole companion. X-rays are thought to be generated from the accretion of wind material donated by the supergiant, while mass transfer due to Roche-lobe overflow is mostly disregarded because the high mass ratios of these systems are thought to render this process unstable. Aims. We investigate how the proximity of supergiant donor stars to the Eddington limit, and their advanced evolutionary stage, may influence the evolution of massive and ultra-luminous X-ray binaries with supergiant donor stars (SGXBs and ULXs). Methods. We constructed models of massive stars with different internal hydrogen and helium gradients (H/He gradients) and different hydrogen-rich envelope masses, and exposed them to slow mass-loss to probe the response of the stellar radius. In addition, we computed the corresponding Roche-lobe overflow mass-transfer evolution with our detailed binary stellar evolution code, approximating the compact objects as point masses. Results. We find that a H/He gradient in the layers beneath the surface, as it is likely present in the well-studied donor stars of observed SGBXs, can enable mass transfer in SGXBs on a nuclear timescale with a black-hole or a neutron star accretor, even for mass ratios in excess of 20. In our binary evolution models, the donor stars rapidly decrease their thermal equilibrium radius and can therefore cope with the inevitably strong orbital contraction imposed by the high mass ratio. We find that the orbital period derivatives of our models agree well with empirical values. We argue that the SGXB phase may be preceded by a common-envelope evolution. The envelope inflation near the Eddington limit means that this mechanism more likely occurs at high metallicity. Conclusion. Our results open a new perspective for understanding that SGBXs are numerous in our Galaxy and are almost completely absent in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Our results may also offer a way to find more ULX systems, to detect mass transfer on nuclear timescales in ULX systems even with neutron star accretors, and shed new light on the origin of the strong B-field in these neutron stars.

scholarly journals Wind Roche lobe overflow in high-mass X-ray binaries

2019 ◽  
Vol 622 ◽  
pp. L3 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. El Mellah ◽  
J. O. Sundqvist ◽  
R. Keppens
Keyword(s):  
Mass Transfer ◽  
Compact Object ◽  
Stellar Mass ◽  
Roche Lobe ◽  
High Mass ◽  
Transfer Rates ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Accretion Rates ◽  
Mass Outflow ◽  
X Ray Binaries

Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) have such high X-ray luminosities that they were long thought to be accreting intermediate-mass black holes. Yet, some ULXs have been shown to display periodic modulations and coherent pulsations suggestive of a neutron star in orbit around a stellar companion and accreting at super-Eddington rates. In this Letter, we propose that the mass transfer in ULXs could be qualitatively the same as in supergiant X-ray binaries (SgXBs), with a wind from the donor star highly beamed towards the compact object. Since the star does not fill its Roche lobe, this mass transfer mechanism known as “wind Roche lobe overflow” can remain stable even for large donor-star-to-accretor mass ratios. Based on realistic acceleration profiles derived from spectral observations and modeling of the stellar wind, we compute the bulk motion of the wind to evaluate the fraction of the stellar mass outflow entering the region of gravitational predominance of the compact object. The density enhancement towards the accretor leads to mass-transfer rates systematically much larger than the mass-accretion rates derived by the Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton formula. We identify orbital and stellar conditions for a SgXBs to transfer mass at rates necessary to reach the ULX luminosity level. These results indicate that Roche-lobe overflow is not the only way to funnel large quantities of material into the Roche lobe of the accretor. With the stellar mass-loss rates and parameters of M101 ULX-1 and NGC 7793 P13, wind Roche-lobe overflow can reproduce mass-transfer rates that qualify an object as an ULX.

scholarly journals 4U 1909+07: a Hidden Pearl

10.14311/1326 ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Kreykenbohm ◽  
F. Fürst ◽  
L. Barrágan ◽  
J. Wilms ◽  
R. E. Rothschild ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Timing Analysis ◽  
High Mass ◽  
Folding Energy ◽  
Pulse Profile ◽  
Spectral Parameters ◽  
Phase Dependence ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Low Energies ◽  
Fluorescence Line ◽  
Energy Dependent

We present a detailed spectral and timing analysis of the High Mass X-ray Binary (HMXB) 4U 1909+07 with INTEGRAL and RXTE. 4U1909+07 is a persistent accreting X-ray pulsar with a period of approximately 605 s. The period changes erratically consistent with a random walk expected for a wind accreting system. INTEGRAL detects the source with an average of 2.4 cps (corresponding to 15mCrab), but sometimes exhibits flaring activity up to 50 cps (i.e. 300mCrab). The strongly energy dependent pulse profile shows a double peaked structure at low energies and only a single narrow peak at energies above 20 keV. The phase averaged spectrum is well described by a powerlaw modified at higher energies by an exponential cutoff and photoelectric absorption at low energies. In addition at 6.4 keV a strong iron fluorescence line and at lower energies a blackbody component are present. We performed phase resolved spectroscopy to study the pulse phase dependence of the spectral parameters: while most spectral parameters are constant within uncertainties, the blackbody normalization and the cutoff folding energy vary strongly with phase.

scholarly journals Multiple cyclotron line-forming regions in GX 301−2

2018 ◽  
Vol 620 ◽  
pp. A153 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Fürst ◽  
S. Falkner ◽  
D. Marcu-Cheatham ◽  
B. Grefenstette ◽  
J. Tomsick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Relativistic Effects ◽  
Resonant Scattering ◽  
The Other ◽  
High Mass ◽  
Good Resolution ◽  
Gaussian Shape ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Cyclotron Line ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Continuum

We present two observations of the high-mass X-ray binary GX 301−2 with NuSTAR, taken at different orbital phases and different luminosities. We find that the continuum is well described by typical phenomenological models, like a very strongly absorbed NPEX model. However, for a statistically acceptable description of the hard X-ray spectrum we require two cyclotron resonant scattering features (CRSF), one at ∼35 keV and the other at ∼50 keV. Even though both features strongly overlap, the good resolution and sensitivity of NuSTAR allows us to disentangle them at ≥99.9% significance. This is the first time that two CRSFs have been seen in GX 301−2. We find that the CRSFs are very likely independently formed, as their energies are not harmonically related and, if the observed feature were due to a single line, the deviation from a Gaussian shape would be very large. We compare our results to archival Suzaku data and find that our model also provides a good fit to those data. We study the behavior of the continuum as well as the CRSF parameters as function of pulse phase in seven phase bins. We find that the energy of the 35 keV CRSF varies smoothly as a function of phase, between 30 and 38 keV. To explain this variation, we apply a simple model of the accretion column, taking into account the altitude of the line-forming region, the velocity of the in-falling material, and the resulting relativistic effects. We find that in this model the observed energy variation can be explained as being simply due to a variation of the projected velocity and beaming factor of the line-forming region towards us.

scholarly journals Supergiant fast X-ray transients versus classical supergiant high mass X-ray binaries: Does the difference lie in the companion wind?

2018 ◽  
Vol 610 ◽  
pp. A50 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Pradhan ◽  
E. Bozzo ◽  
B. Paul
Keyword(s):  
Stellar Wind ◽  
Equivalent Width ◽  
High Mass ◽  
Stellar Winds ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Iron Line ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Eclipse Observations ◽  
The Difference ◽  
X Ray Binaries

We present a comparative study of stellar winds in classical supergiant high mass X-ray binaries (SgXBs) and supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs) based on the analysis of publicly available out-of-eclipse observations performed with Suzaku and XMM-Newton. Our data set includes 55 observations of classical SgXBs and 21 observations of SFXTs. We found that classical SgXBs are characterized by a systematically higher absorption and luminosity compared to the SFXTs, confirming the results of previous works in the literature. Additionally, we show that the equivalent width of the fluorescence Kα iron line in the classical SgXBs is significantly larger than that of the SFXTs (outside X-ray eclipses). Based on our current understanding of the physics of accretion in these systems, we conclude that the most likely explanation of these differences is ascribed to the presence of mechanisms inhibiting accretion most of the time in SFXTs, thereby leading to a much less efficient photoionization of the stellar wind compared to classical SgXBs. We do not find evidence for the previously reported anticorrelation between the equivalent width of the fluorescence iron line and the luminosity of SgXBs.

scholarly journals Spectroscopy of the Stellar Wind in the Cygnus X-1 System

10.14311/1332 ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Miškovičová ◽  
M. Hanke ◽  
J. Wilms ◽  
M. A. Nowak ◽  
K. Pottschmidt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Black Hole ◽  
Binary System ◽  
Stellar Wind ◽  
Roche Lobe ◽  
High Mass ◽  
Lagrange Point ◽  
Companion Star ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Accretion Flow

The X-ray luminosity of black holes is produced through the accretion of material from their companion stars. Depending on the mass of the donor star, accretion of the material falling onto the black hole through the inner Lagrange point of the system or accretion by the strong stellar wind can occur. Cygnus X-1 is a high mass X-ray binary system, where the black hole is powered by accretion of the stellar wind of its supergiant companion star HDE226868. As the companion is close to filling its Roche lobe, the wind is not symmetric, but strongly focused towards the black hole. Chandra-HETGS observations allow for an investigation of this focused stellar wind, which is essential to understand the physics of the accretion flow. We compare observations at the distinct orbital phases of 0.0, 0.2, 0.5 and 0.75. These correspond to different lines of sight towards the source, allowing us to probe the structure and the dynamics of the wind.

scholarly journals HD 192641 and HD 193077: Two Single, Hydrogen-Rich Wolf-Rayets?

1980 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 187-191
Author(s):  
Philip Massey
Keyword(s):  
Absorption Spectrum ◽  
Mass Loss ◽  
Stellar Wind ◽  
Binary Systems ◽  
Roche Lobe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Emission Lines ◽  
Absorption Lines ◽  
Absorption And Emission ◽  
Complete Story

As recently as six years ago it was generally agreed that all Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars were the product of mass loss induced by Roche lobe over-flow (RLOF), and that thus they were all members of binary systems. In particular, the presence of absorption lines in the spectrum of a WR star was taken as a definitive indicator that the star was a binary, as it was well known that emission alone (other than the absorption present in P Cygni profiles) was a WR characteristic. However, Niemela (1973) showed that in the WN 7 binary HD 92740 that the absorption and emission lines move in phase, proving that in at least one case the absorption spectrum originates in the WR star itself. Conti (1976) has meanwhile suggested that WR stars could form by mass loss due to a stellar wind rather than RLOF. Obviously it is well worth examining the belief that all (or even most) WR stars are binaries. The currently popular feeling is that the late WN stars (WN 7, 8, and 9) are the only possible exceptions to the traditional picture, while the members of the other subclasses are all hydrogen-poor and probably members of binaries. I hope to convince you today that this is not the complete story.

scholarly journals Spectral observations of X Persei: Connection between Hα and X-ray emission

2019 ◽  
Vol 622 ◽  
pp. A173 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Zamanov ◽  
K. A. Stoyanov ◽  
U. Wolter ◽  
D. Marchev ◽  
N. I. Petrov
Keyword(s):  
Neutron Star ◽  
Emission Line ◽  
Equivalent Width ◽  
Roche Lobe ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Expansion Velocity ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Spectroscopic Observations ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
Disc Size

We present spectroscopic observations of the Be/X-ray binary X Per obtained during the period 1999–2018. Using new and published data, we found that during “disc-rise” the expansion velocity of the circumstellar disc is 0.4–0.7 km s−1. Our results suggest that the disc radius in recent decades show evidence of resonant truncation of the disc by resonances 10:1, 3:1, and 2:1, while the maximum disc size is larger than the Roche lobe of the primary and smaller than the closest approach of the neutron star. We find correlation between equivalent width of Hα emission line (Wα) and the X-ray flux, which is visible when 15 Å < Wα ≤ 40 Å. The correlation is probably due to wind Roche lobe overflow.

Orbital resolved spectroscopy of GX 301–2: wind diagnostics

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (S346) ◽  
pp. 59-61
Author(s):  
Nazma Islam
Keyword(s):  
Equivalent Width ◽  
Column Density ◽  
High Mass ◽  
Absorption Column ◽  
Iron Line ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Orbital Phase ◽  
Stable Periodic ◽  
Phase Range ◽  
Using Data

AbstractGX 301–2, a bright high-mass X-ray binary with an orbital period of 41.5 days, exhibits stable periodic orbital intensity modulations with a strong pre-periastron X-ray flare. Several models have been proposed to explain the accretion at different orbital phases. In Islam & Paul (2014), we presented results from an orbital resolved spectroscopic study of GX 301–2 using data from MAXI Gas Slit Camera. We have found a strong orbital dependence of the absorption column density and equivalent width of the iron emission line. A very large equivalent width of the iron line along with a small value of the column density in the orbital phase range 0.1–0.3 after the periastron passage indicates the presence of high density accretion stream. We aim to further investigate the characteristics of the accretion stream with an AstroSat observation of the system.

scholarly journals The missing compact star of SN1987A: a solid quark star?

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S291) ◽  
pp. 448-450
Author(s):  
X. W. Liu ◽  
J. D. Liang ◽  
R. X. Xu ◽  
J. L. Han ◽  
G. J. Qiao
Keyword(s):  
Compact Star ◽  
Compact Object ◽  
The Other ◽  
Quark Star ◽  
Cooling Process ◽  
Cluster Star ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Supernova 1987A ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Parameter Constraints

AbstractTo investigate the missing compact star of Supernova 1987A, we analyzed the cooling and heating processes of a possible compact star based on the upper limit of observational X-ray luminosity. From the cooling process, we found that a solid quark-cluster star (SQS), having a stiffer equation of state than that of a conventional liquid quark star, has a heat capacity much smaller than a neutron star. The SQS can cool down quickly, naturally explaining the non-detection of a point source in X-ray wavelengths. On the other hand, we considered the heating processes due to magnetospheric activity and possible accretion and obtained some constraints on the parameters of a possible pulsar. Therefore, we concluded that a SQS can explain the observational limit in a confident parameter space. As a possible central compact object, the pulsar parameter constraints can be tested for SN1987A with advanced, future facilities.

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