High Resolution Spectroscopy of Winds in Galactic X-Ray Sources

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

The High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (HETGS) onboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory has produced a large number of high resolution X-ray spectra providing us with unprecedented spectroscopic details. X-ray spectra from winds in Galactic sources reveal plasmas in a wide range of parameters. Cold, optically thick flourescent matter in coexistence with warm photoionized plasmas are found in wind-accreting X-ray binaries. Highly photo-ionized plasmas may be found in outflows of accreting X-ray binaries, although X-rays from jets have shown signatures of collisionally ionized plasmas. Winds from hot stars and hot star systems are generally collisionally ionized. In addition, line shifts and shapes caused by velocity fields constrain the spatial extend of the X-ray emitting plasma. With the application of line diagnostic tools we are now able to model the physical properties of these plasmas. We will highlight these properties with a variety of examples, i.e. the hot accretion disk wind in the in the low-mass X-ray binary Cir X-1 shows remarkable properties in terms of ionization structure and column density variations, whereas the winds in Vela X-1 and GX 301-2 are cooler and dominated by flourescent lines. The latter show a large number of K-shell emission lines from a highly photoionized plasma but also several M- and L-shell transitions from lower Z elements. Especially the emission from L-shell ions seems quite mysterious. Line contributions from collisionally ionized plasmas from the companion wind seems to be marginal in these sources, although there may be cases where such a contribution cannot be ruled out.

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