Back to Search Start Over

The high-energy emission from HD~93129A near periastron

Authors :
del Palacio, S.
García, F.
Altamirano, D.
Barbá, R. H.
Bosch-Ramon, V.
Corcoran, M.
De Becker, M.
Hamaguchi, K.
Apellániz, J. Maíz
Adrover, P. Munar
Paredes, J. M.
Romero, G. E.
Sana, H.
Tavani, M.
ud-Doula, A.
Publication Year :
2020

Abstract

We conducted an observational campaign towards one of the most massive and luminous colliding wind binaries in the Galaxy, HD~93129A, close to its periastron passage in 2018. During this time the source was predicted to be in its maximum of high-energy emission. Here we present our data analysis from the X-ray satellites \textit{Chandra} and \textit{NuSTAR} and the $\gamma$-ray satellite \textit{AGILE}. High-energy emission coincident with HD~93129A was detected in the X-ray band up to $\sim$18~keV, whereas in the $\gamma$-ray band only upper limits were obtained. We interpret the derived fluxes using a non-thermal radiative model for the wind-collision region. We establish a conservative upper limit for the fraction of the wind kinetic power that is converted into relativistic electron acceleration, $f_\mathrm{NT,e} < 0.02$. In addition, we set a lower limit for the magnetic field in the wind-collision region as $B_\mathrm{WCR} > 0.3$~G. We also argue a putative interpretation of the emission from which we estimate $f_\mathrm{NT,e} \approx 0.006$ and $B_\mathrm{WCR} \approx 0.5$~G. We conclude that multi-wavelength, dedicated observing campaigns during carefully selected epochs are a powerful tool for characterising the relativistic particle content and magnetic field intensity in colliding wind binaries.<br />Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Details

Database :
arXiv
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.2004.10032
Document Type :
Working Paper
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa1156