Neutron star masses from hydrodynamical effects in obscured supergiant high mass X-ray binaries
Abstract
Context. A population of obscured supergiant high mass X-ray binaries has been discovered by INTEGRAL. X-ray wind tomography of IGR J17252-3616 inferred a slow wind velocity to account for the enhanced obscuration.
Aims: The main goal of this study is to understand under which conditions high obscuration could occur.
Methods: We have used an hydrodynamical code to simulate the flow of the stellar wind around the neutron star. A grid of simulations was used to study the dependency of the absorbing column density and of the X-ray light-curves on the model parameters. A comparison between the simulation results and the observations of IGR J17252-3616 provides an estimate on these parameters.
Results: We have constrained the wind terminal velocity to 500-600 km s-1 and the neutron star mass to 1.75-2.15 M⊙.
Conclusions: We have confirmed that the initial hypothesis of a slow wind velocity with a moderate mass loss rate is valid. The mass of the neutron star can be constrained by studying its impact on the accretion flow.
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- November 2012
- DOI:
- 10.1051/0004-6361/201219717
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1210.2952
- Bibcode:
- 2012A&A...547A..20M
- Keywords:
-
- X-rays: binaries;
- methods: numerical;
- stars: winds;
- outflows;
- stars: neutron;
- accretion;
- accretion disks;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- A&