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Institute
The accretion of the stellar wind material by a compact object represents the main mechanism powering the X-ray emission in classical supergiant high mass X-ray binaries and supergiant fast X-ray transients. In this work we present the first attempt to simulate the accretion process of a fast and dense massive star wind onto a neutron star, taking into account the effects of the centrifugal and magnetic inhibition of accretion ("gating") due to the spin and magnetic field of the compact object. We made use of a radiative hydrodynamical code to model the nonstationary radiatively driven wind of an O-B supergiant star and then place a neutron star characterized by a fixed magnetic field and spin period at a certain distance from the massive companion. Our calculations follow, as a function of time (on a total timescale of several hours), the transitions of the system through all different accretion regimes that are triggered by the intrinsic variations in the density and velocity of the nonstationary wind. The X-ray luminosity released by the system is computed at each time step by taking into account the relevant physical processes occurring in the different accretion regimes. Synthetic lightcurves are derived and qualitatively compared with those observed from classical supergiant high mass X-ray binaries and supergiant fast X-ray transients. Although a number of simplifications are assumed in these calculations, we show that taking into account the effects of the centrifugal and magnetic inhibition of accretion significantly reduces the average X-ray luminosity expected for any neutron star wind-fed binary. The present model calculations suggest that long spin periods and stronger magnetic fields are favored in order to reproduce the peculiar behavior of supergiant fast X-ray transients in the X-ray domain.
We report the discovery of weak yet hard X-ray emission from the Wolf-Rayet (WR) star WR 142 with the XMM- Newton X-ray telescope. Being of spectral subtype WO2, WR 142 is a massive star in a very advanced evolutionary stage shortly before its explosion as a supernova or. gamma-ray burst. This is the first detection of X-ray emission from a WO- type star. We rule out any serendipitous X-ray sources within approximate to 1 '' of WR 142. WR 142 has an X- ray luminosity of L-X approximate to 7 x 10(30) erg s(-1), which constitutes only less than or similar to 10(-8) of its bolometric luminosity. The hard X-ray spectrum suggests a plasma temperature of about 100 MK. Commonly, X-ray emission from stellar winds is attributed to embedded shocks due to the intrinsic instability of the radiation driving. From qualitative considerations we conclude that this mechanism cannot account for the hardness of the observed radiation. There are no hints for a binary companion. Therefore the only remaining, albeit speculative explanation must refer to magnetic activity. Possibly related, WR 142 seems to rotate extremely fast, as indicated by the unusually round profiles of its optical emission lines. Our detection implies that the wind of WR 142 must be relatively transparent to X-rays, which can be due to strong wind ionization, wind clumping, or nonspherical geometry from rapid rotation.
Spectral lines formed in stellar winds from OB stars are observed to exhibit profile variations. Discrete Absorption Components (DACs) show a remarkably slow wavelength drift with time. In a straightforward interpretation, this is in sharp contradiction to the steep velocity law predicted by the radiation-driven wind theory, and by semi- empirical profile fitting. In the present paper we re-discuss the interpretation of the drift rate. We show that the Co- rotating Interaction Region (CIR) model for the formation of DACs does not explain their slow drift rate as a consequence of rotation. On the contrary, the apparent acceleration of a spectral CIR feature is even higher than for the corresponding kinematical model without rotation. However, the observations can be understood by distinguishing between the velocity field of the matter flow, and the velocity law for the motion of the patterns in which the DAC features are formed. If the latter propagate upstream against the matter flow, the resulting wavelength drift mimics a much slower acceleration although the matter is moving fast. Additional to the DACs, a second type of recurrent structures is present in observed OB star spectra, the so-called modulations. In contrast to the DACs, these structures show a steep acceleration compatible with the theoretically predicted velocity law. We see only two possible consistent scenarios. Either, the wind is accelerated fast, and the modulations are formed in advected structures, while the DACs come from structures which are propagating upstream. Or, alternatively, steep and shallow velocity laws may co-exist at the same time in different spatial regions or directions of the wind.
We discuss the connection between wind overloading and discrete absorption components in P Cygni line profiles from O stars. Overloading can create horizontal plateaus in the radial wind speed that cause the extra absorption in the line profile. The upstream propagation speed of these velocity plateaus is analyzed. The second part of the paper deals with X-ray emission from O stars. X-ray line profiles observed with Chandra and XMM are often symmetric, contrary to what is expected for lines from a homogeneous wind. We discuss the influence on line symmetry of photon escape channels in a strongly clumped wind.
We discuss X-ray line formation in dense O star winds. A random distribution of wind shocks is assumed to emit X-rays that are partially absorbed by cooler wind gas. The cool gas resides in highly compressed fragments oriented perpendicular to the radial flow direction. For fully opaque fragments, we find that the blueshifted part of X-ray line profiles remains flat-topped even after severe wind attenuation, whereas the red part shows a steep decline. These box- type, blueshifted profiles resemble recent Chandra observations of the O3 star zeta Pup. For partially transparent fragments, the emission lines become similar to those from a homogeneous wind.
Context. The true mass-loss rates from massive stars are important for many branches of astrophysics. For the correct modeling of the resonance lines, which are among the key diagnostics of stellar mass-loss, the stellar wind clumping has been found to be very important. To incorporate clumping into a radiative transfer calculation, three-dimensional (3D) models are required. Various properties of the clumps may have a strong impact on the resonance line formation and, therefore, on the determination of empirical mass-loss rates.
Aims. We incorporate the 3D nature of the stellar wind clumping into radiative transfer calculations and investigate how different model parameters influence the resonance line formation.
Methods. We develop a full 3D Monte Carlo radiative transfer code for inhomogeneous expanding stellar winds. The number density of clumps follows the mass conservation. For the first time, we use realistic 3D models that describe the dense as well as the tenuous wind components to model the formation of resonance lines in a clumped stellar wind. At the same time, we account for non-monotonic velocity fields.
Results. The 3D density and velocity wind inhomogeneities show that there is a very strong impact on the resonance line formation. The different parameters describing the clumping and the velocity field results in different line strengths and profiles. We present a set of representative models for various sets of model parameters and investigate how the resonance lines are affected. Our 3D models show that the line opacity is lower for a larger clump separation and shallower velocity gradients within the clumps.
Conclusions. Our model demonstrates that to obtain empirically correct mass-loss rates from the UV resonance lines, the wind clumping and its 3D nature must be taken into account.
Clumped stellar winds in supergiant high-mass X-ray binaries: X-ray variability and photoionization
(2012)
The clumping of massive star winds is an established paradigm, which is confirmed by multiple lines of evidence and is supported by stellar wind theory. The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between detailed models of inhomogeneous stellar winds in single stars and the phenomenological description of donor winds in supergiant high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs). We use the results from time-dependent hydrodynamical models of the instability in the line-driven wind of a massive supergiant star to derive the time-dependent accretion rate on to a compact object in the BondiHoyleLyttleton approximation. The strong density and velocity fluctuations in the wind result in strong variability of the synthetic X-ray light curves. The model predicts a large-scale X-ray variability, up to eight orders of magnitude, on relatively short time-scales. The apparent lack of evidence for such strong variability in the observed HMXBs indicates that the details of the accretion process act to reduce the variability resulting from the stellar wind velocity and density jumps.
Archival X-ray spectra of the four prominent single, non-magnetic O stars zeta Pup, zeta Ori, xi Per and zeta Oph, obtained in high resolution with Chandra HETGS/MEG have been studied. The resolved X-ray emission line profiles provide information about the shocked, hot gas which emits the X-radiation, and about the bulk of comparably cool stellar wind material which partly absorbs this radiation. In this paper, we synthesize X-ray line profiles with a model of a clumpy stellar wind. We find that the geometrical shape of the wind inhomogeneities is important: better agreement with the observations can be achieved with radially compressed clumps than with spherical clumps. The parameters of the model, i.e. chemical abundances, stellar radius, mass-loss rate and terminal wind velocity, are taken from existing analyses of UV and optical spectra of the programme stars. On this basis, we also calculate the continuum-absorption coefficient of the cool-wind material, using the Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (POWR) model atmosphere code. The radial location of X-ray emitting gas is restricted from analysing the FIR line ratios of helium-like ions. The only remaining free parameter of our model is the typical distance between the clumps; here, we assume that at any point in the wind there is one clump passing by per one dynamical time-scale of the wind. The total emission in a model line is scaled to the observation. There is a good agreement between synthetic and observed line profiles. We conclude that the X-ray emission line profiles in O stars can be explained by hot plasma embedded in a cool wind which is highly clumped in the form of radially compressed shell fragments.