Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006head....9.0201m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #9, #2.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.344
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We report the latest results on the spatial distribution of X-ray sources in the central 20 pc of the Galaxy, using 1 Msec of Chandra observations taken over the past 7 years. We have previously reported that faint (<10^36 erg/s) transient X-ray binaries are over-abundant by a factor of 20 per unit stellar mass in the central parsec around Sgr A*, when compared to their rate of appearance between 1--20 pc from the Galactic center. Here, we report that the persistent X-ray sources in the central parsec are systematically softer than those located 1--20 pc from the Galactic center. A handful of these soft X-ray sources are associated with massive, young, emission-line stars, and are therefore likely to be colliding wind binaries. However, the remainder do not have bright infrared counterparts, and so may be persistent low-mass X-ray binaries. As with the transients, we propose that they formed through three-body interactions between stellar binaries and neutron stars or black holes that settled through dynamical friction into the central parsec. Because the persistent sources are more numerous than the transients, their spatial distribution can in principle provide better constraints on the degree of mass segregation in the Galactic center. We conclude by describing the prospects of determining whether these sources contain neutron star or black holes, which is key to using these systems as probes of stellar dynamics around Sgr A*.
Baganoff Frederick Keith
Heinke Craig O.
Muno Michael P.
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