TY - JOUR A1 - De Becker, M. A1 - del Valle, Maria Victoria A1 - Romero, G. E. A1 - Peri, C. S. A1 - Benaglia, P. T1 - X- ray study of bow shocks in runaway stars JF - Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society N2 - Massive runaway stars produce bow shocks through the interaction of their winds with the interstellar medium, with the prospect for particle acceleration by the shocks. These objects are consequently candidates for non-thermal emission. Our aim is to investigate the X-ray emission from these sources. We observed with XMM-Newton a sample of five bow shock runaways, which constitutes a significant improvement of the sample of bow shock runaways studied in X-rays so far. A careful analysis of the data did not reveal any X-ray emission related to the bow shocks. However, X-ray emission from the stars is detected, in agreement with the expected thermal emission from stellar winds. On the basis of background measurements we derive conservative upper limits between 0.3 and 10 keV on the bow shocks emission. Using a simple radiation model, these limits together with radio upper limits allow us to constrain some of the main physical quantities involved in the non-thermal emission processes, such as the magnetic field strength and the amount of incident infrared photons. The reasons likely responsible for the non-detection of non-thermal radiation are discussed. Finally, using energy budget arguments, we investigate the detectability of inverse Compton X-rays in a more extended sample of catalogued runaway star bow shocks. From our analysis we conclude that a clear identification of non-thermal X-rays from massive runaway bow shocks requires one order of magnitude (or higher) sensitivity improvement with respect to present observatories. KW - acceleration of particles KW - radiation mechanisms: non-thermal KW - stars: earlytype KW - X-rays: stars Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx1826 SN - 0035-8711 SN - 1365-2966 VL - 471 SP - 4452 EP - 4464 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - del Valle, Maria Victoria A1 - Müller, A. L. A1 - Romero, G. E. T1 - High-energy radiation from collisions of high-velocity clouds and the Galactic disc JF - Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society N2 - High-velocity clouds (HVCs) are interstellar clouds of atomic hydrogen that do not follow normal Galactic rotation and have velocities of a several hundred kilometres per second. A considerable number of these clouds are falling down towards the Galactic disc. HVCs form large and massive complexes, so if they collide with the disc a great amount of energy would be released into the interstellar medium. The cloud-disc interaction produces two shocks: one propagates through the cloud and the other through the disc. The properties of these shocks depend mainly on the cloud velocity and the disc-cloud density ratio. In this work, we study the conditions necessary for these shocks to accelerate particles by diffusive shock acceleration and we study the non-thermal radiation that is produced. We analyse particle acceleration in both the cloud and disc shocks. Solving a time-dependent two-dimensional transport equation for both relativistic electrons and protons, we obtain particle distributions and non-thermal spectral energy distributions. In a shocked cloud, significant synchrotron radio emission is produced along with soft gamma rays. In the case of acceleration in the shocked disc, the non-thermal radiation is stronger; the gamma rays, of leptonic origin, might be detectable with current instruments. A large number of protons are injected into the Galactic interstellar medium, and locally exceed the cosmic ray background. We conclude that under adequate conditions the contribution from HVC-disc collisions to the galactic population of relativistic particles and the associated extended non-thermal radiation might be important. KW - radiation mechanisms: non-thermal KW - ISM: clouds KW - cosmic rays Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx2984 SN - 0035-8711 SN - 1365-2966 VL - 475 IS - 4 SP - 4298 EP - 4308 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - del Valle, Maria Victoria A1 - Pohl, Martin T1 - Nonthermal emission from Stellar Bow Shocks JF - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics N2 - Since the detection of nonthermal radio emission from the bow shock of the massive runaway star BD +43 degrees 3654, simple models have predicted high-energy emission, at X-rays and gamma-rays, from these Galactic sources. Observational searches for this emission so far give no conclusive evidence but a few candidates at gamma-rays. In this work we aim at developing a more sophisticated model for the nonthermal emission from massive runaway star bow shocks. The main goal is to establish whether these systems are efficient nonthermal emitters, even if they are not strong enough yet to be detected. For modeling the collision between the stellar wind and the interstellar medium we use 2D hydrodynamic simulations. We then adopt the flow profile of the wind and the ambient medium obtained with the simulation as the plasma state for solving the transport of energetic particles injected in the system, as well as the nonthermal emission they produce. For this purpose we solve a 3D (two spatial vertical bar energy) advection-diffusion equation in the test-particle approximation. We find that a massive runaway star with a powerful wind converts 0.16%-0.4% of the power injected in electrons into nonthermal emission, mostly produced by inverse Compton scattering of dust-emitted photons by relativistic electrons, and second by synchrotron radiation. This represents a fraction of similar to 10(-5) to 10(-4) of the wind kinetic power. Given the better sensibility of current instruments at radio wavelengths, these systems are more prone to be detected at radio through the synchrotron emission they produce rather than at gamma energies. KW - gamma-rays: stars KW - hydrodynamics KW - radiation mechanisms: nonthermal KW - stars: winds, outflows Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aad333 SN - 0004-637X SN - 1538-4357 VL - 864 IS - 1 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sanchez-Ayaso, María de la Estrella A1 - del Valle, Maria Victoria A1 - Marti, Josep A1 - Romero, G. E. A1 - Luque-Escamilla, Pedro Luis T1 - Possible association of two Stellar Bowshocks with Unidentified Fermi Sources JF - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics N2 - The bowshocks of runaway stars had been theoretically proposed as gamma-ray sources. However, this hypothesis has not been confirmed by observations to date. In this paper, we present two runaway stars (lambda Cep and LS 2355) whose bowshocks are coincident with the unidentified Fermi gamma-ray sources 3FLG J2210.1+5925 and 3FGL J1128.7-6232, respectively. After performing a cross-correlation between different catalogs at distinct wavelengths, we found that these bowshocks are the most peculiar objects in the Fermi position ellipses. Then we computed the inverse Compton emission and fitted the Fermi data in order to test the viability of both runaway stars as potential counterparts of the two high-energy sources. We obtained very reasonable values for the fitted parameters of both stars. We also evaluated the possibility for the source 3FGL J1128.7-6232, which is positionally coincident with a H II region, to be the result of background cosmic-ray protons interacting with the matter of the cloud, as well as the probability of a pure chance association. We conclude that the gamma rays from these Fermi sources might be produced in the bowshocks of the considered runaway stars. In such a case, these would be the first sources of this class ever detected at gamma rays. KW - stars: winds, outflows Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aac7c7 SN - 0004-637X SN - 1538-4357 VL - 861 IS - 1 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Vieyro, Florencia L. A1 - Romero, Gustavo Esteban A1 - Bosch-Ramon, Valentin A1 - Marcote, Benito A1 - del Valle, Maria Victoria T1 - A model for the repeating FRB 121102 in the AGN scenario JF - Astronomy and astrophysics : an international weekly journal N2 - Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are transient sources of unknown origin. Recent radio and optical observations have provided strong evidence for an extragalactic origin of the phenomenon and the precise localization of the repeating FRB 121102. Observations using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) have revealed the existence of a continuum non-thermal radio source consistent with the location of the bursts in a dwarf galaxy. All these new data rule out several models that were previously proposed, and impose stringent constraints to new models. Aims. We aim to model FRB 121102 in light of the new observational results in the active galactic nucleus (AGN) scenario. Methods. We propose a model for repeating FRBs in which a non-steady relativistic e(+)-beam, accelerated by an impulsive magneto-hydrodynamic driven mechanism, interacts with a cloud at the centre of a star-forming dwarf galaxy. The interaction generates regions of high electrostatic field called cavitons in the plasma cloud. Turbulence is also produced in the beam. These processes, plus particle isotropization, the interaction scale, and light retardation effects, provide the necessary ingredients for short-lived, bright coherent radiation bursts. Results. The mechanism studied in this work explains the general properties of FRB 121102, and may also be applied to other repetitive FRBs. Conclusions. Coherent emission from electrons and positrons accelerated in cavitons provides a plausible explanation of FRBs. KW - radio continuum: general KW - galaxies: dwarf KW - galaxies: jets KW - radiation mechanisms: non-thermal Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201730556 SN - 1432-0746 VL - 602 PB - EDP Sciences CY - Les Ulis ER -