Exploring The Nature Of High Instrinsic X-ray Absorption In Symbiotic Stars
Abstract
All sky surveys recently carried out with Swift and Integral, as well as a number of pointed observations with XMM-Newton and Chandra, have revealed that a subset of symbiotic stars (white dwarfs accreting from giant companions) are hard X-ray sources. Spectral analysis of such systems indicates that this X-ray emission is subject to high levels of intrinsic absorption - up to 1024 cm-2 in the case of RS Oph. The nature of this absorbing material is not yet understood. Using our recent work on RS Oph and T CrB, and gathering results from the literature, we examine how this intrinsic absorption varies between systems, exploring dependencies on white dwarf mass, estimated accretion rate, and orbital parameters. We discuss the implications of intrinsic absorption on searches for type Ia supernova progenitors.
- Publication:
-
AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division #11
- Pub Date:
- March 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010HEAD...11.1902N