Investigation of Mid-infrared Dust Emission of Highly Obscured X-ray Binaries

Details Investigation of Mid-infrared Dust Emission of Highly Obscured X-ray Binaries Investigation of Mid-infrared Dust Emission of Highly Obscured X-ray Binaries

Jun 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005sptz.prop20702m&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #20702

Computer Science

Scientific paper

We propose to conduct Spitzer/IRS observations of four highly obscured X-ray binaries with presumed supergiant O/B companions: IGR J16318-4848, XTE J0421+560, GX 301-2, and X1908+075. These sources are distinguished by the large amounts of hydrogen along the lines-of-sight: N_H > 10^23 cm^-2 (or A_V > 100). In particular, the hydrogen column density towards IGR J16318-4848, a new source recently discovered by the INTEGRAL hard X-ray satellite, reaches N_H ~ 2 x 10^24 cm^-2, one of the highest known among all X-ray sources. IGR J16318-4848 represents the first and brightest of a growing number of similar sources discovered by INTEGRAL, but as yet their natures are not clear. Using archival near- and mid-infrared data we have found that three of the four sources above (all but X1908+075) have significant amounts of excess mid-infrared emission. The excess is most likely caused by warm dust accreting onto a compact object, which is quite unique for X-ray binaries and may prove to be the cause of the extremely high column densities. The primary purpose of the proposed observations is to identify and investigate the (potential) dust emission using IRS mid-infrared spectra which can help understand: [1] the origin of the extreme obscuration of the X-ray binaries, [2] the evolutionary track of high-mass X-ray binaries with circumstellar dust shell, [3] the properties of dust emission under strong X-ray illumination, and [4] hopefully unravel the nature of the new INTEGRAL hard X-ray sources.

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