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  -