High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of the stellar wind in Vela X-1 during a flare

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Título: High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of the stellar wind in Vela X-1 during a flare
Autor/es: Lomaeva, Maria | Grinberg, Victoria | Guainazzi, Matteo | Hell, Natalie | Bianchi, Stefano | Bissinger né Kühnel, Matthias | Fürst, Felix | Kretschmar, Peter | Martinez-Chicharro, Maria | Martínez Núñez, Silvia | Torrejon, Jose M.
Grupo/s de investigación o GITE: Astronomía y Astrofísica
Centro, Departamento o Servicio: Universidad de Alicante. Departamento de Física, Ingeniería de Sistemas y Teoría de la Señal | Universidad de Alicante. Instituto Universitario de Física Aplicada a las Ciencias y las Tecnologías
Palabras clave: Stars: massive | Stars: winds, outflows | X-rays: binaries
Área/s de conocimiento: Astronomía y Astrofísica
Fecha de publicación: 24-sep-2020
Editor: EDP Sciences
Cita bibliográfica: Astronomy & Astrophysics. 2020, 641: A144. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202037807
Resumen: Context. We present a ~130 ks observation of the prototypical wind-accreting, high-mass X-ray binary Vela X-1 collected with XMM-Newton at orbital phases between 0.12 and 0.28. A strong flare took place during the observation that allows us to investigate the reaction of the clumpy stellar wind to the increased X-ray irradiation. Aims. To examine the wind’s reaction to the flare, we performed both time-averaged and time-resolved analyses of the RGS spectrum and examined potential spectral changes. Methods. We focused on the high-resolution XMM-Newton RGS spectra and divided the observation into pre-flare, flare, and post-flare phases. We modeled the time-averaged and time-resolved spectra with phenomenological components and with the self-consistent photoionization models calculated via CLOUDY and XSTAR in the pre-flare phase, where strong emission lines due to resonant transitions of highly ionized ions are seen. Results. In the spectra, we find emission lines corresponding to K-shell transitions in highly charged ions of oxygen, neon, magnesium, and silicon as well as radiative recombination continua (RRC) of oxygen. Additionally, we observe potential absorption lines of magnesium at a lower ionization stage and features identified as iron L lines. The CLOUDY and XSTAR photoionization models provide contradictory results, either pointing towards uncertainties in theory or possibly a more complex multi-phase plasma, or both. Conclusions. We are able to demonstrate the existence of a plethora of variable narrow features, including the firm detection of oxygen lines and RRC that RGS enables to observe in this source for the first time. We show that Vela X-1 is an ideal source for future high-resolution missions, such as XRISM and Athena.
Patrocinador/es: V.G. is supported through the Margarete von Wrangell fellowship by the ESF and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg. We acknowledge support from the ESTEC Faculty Visiting Scientist Programme to V.G. S.B. acknowledges financial support from the Italian Space Agency under grant ASI-INAF 2017-14-H.O. Work at LLNL was performed under the auspieces of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC52-07NA27344. S.M.N. acknowledges funding by the Spanish Ministry MCIU under project RTI2018-096686-B-C21 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE), co-funded by FEDER funds and by the Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu, ref. MDM-2017-0765.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10045/109865
ISSN: 0004-6361 (Print) | 1432-0746 (Online)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202037807
Idioma: eng
Tipo: info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Derechos: © ESO 2020
Revisión científica: si
Versión del editor: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202037807
Aparece en las colecciones:INV - Astronomía y Astrofísica - Artículos de Revistas

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