Multiwavelength Observations of Gamma-ray Binary Candidates
M. Virginia McSwain, Masha Chernyakova, Denis Malishev, Michael De Becker, Stephen Williams
44 th Fermi Symposium : Monterey, CA : 28 Oct-2 Nov 2012 Multiwavelength Observations of Gamma-ray Binary Candidates
M. Virginia McSwain
Lehigh University, 16 Memorial Drive East, Bethlehem, PA 18015, USA
Masha Chernyakova
Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
Denis Malishev
Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kiev, Ukraine
Michael De Becker
Universit ´e de Li `ege, Address, Li `ege, Belgium
Stephen Williams
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
A rare group of high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) are known that also exhibit MeV, GeV, and/or TeV emission(“gamma-ray binaries”). Expanding the sample of gamma-ray binaries and identifying unknown Fermi sourcesare currently of great interest to the community. Based upon their positional coincidence with the unidentifiedFermi sources 1FGL J1127.7–6244c and 1FGL J1808.5–1954c, the Be stars HD 99771 and HD 165783 havebeen proposed as gamma-ray binary candidates. During Fermi Cycle 4, we have performed multiwavelengthobservations of these sources using
XMM-Newton and the CTIO 1.5m telescope. We do not confirm highenergy emission from the Be stars. Here we examine other X-ray sources in the field of view that are potentialcounterparts to the Fermi sources.
1. Introduction
There are a small but growing number of high massX-ray binaries (HMXBs) that also exhibit emissionabove 100 MeV. Currently, this category of “ γ -ray bi-naries” includes: LS I +61 303 [Abdo et al. 2009a,Albert et al. 2006], LS 5039 [Abdo et al. 2009b, Aha-ronian 2006], Cygnus X-3 [Abdo et al. 2009c], 1FGLJ1018.6–5856 [Ackermann et al. 2012], PSR B1259–63 [Abdo et al. 2011, Aharonian et al. 2005], HESSJ0632+057 [Aharonian et al. 2007, Hinton et al. 2009],and possibly Cygnus X-1 [Albert et al. 2007, Sabatiniet al. 2013].Each of the γ -ray binaries contain a hot, youngstar (either Wolf-Rayet, O, or Be spectral class) andexhibit variable emission across the electromagneticspectrum. In the first four systems, the MeV–GeVlight curve is modulated with the orbital period de-termined from optical spectra and/or radio flux mea-surements. Furthermore, all three were identified inthe Fermi
Year 1 Point Source Catalog (1FGL) usingthe binary orbital period as a key signature [Abdo etal. 2010]. The MeV–TeV emission of PSR B1259–63also correlates with the source orbital phase in thatit has only been successfully detected close to the pe-riastron phases (Aharonian et al. 2005; Abdo et al.2011). The high energy emission of HESS J0632+057is also variable with a period of 321 days, similar to theproposed optical counterpart (Bongiorno et al. 2011;Casares et al. 2012).About 60% of HMXBs are Be/X-ray binaries(BeXRBs) that contain a B-type star with a circum-stellar mass-loss disk (a Be star) with a compact com-panion, usually a neutron star [Liu et al. 2006]. Bestar systems also comprise about 50% of the knowngamma-ray binaries: LS I +61 303, PSR B1259–63, and HESS J0632+057. The high energy emission ispowered by either wind accretion onto the compactstar, or by the collision of stellar and relativistic pul-sar winds in a shock region [Dubus 2006]. All of thesesources present a unique opportunity to study particleacceleration in nearby, Galactic sources.We have cross-correlated the 1FGL Abdo et al.[2010] with the Jaschek & Egret [1982] catalog ofknown Be stars, and we discovered two Be stars withinthe 95% error ellipse of 1FGL sources. Using
XMM-Newton images, we find that the Be stars are not sig-nificant X-ray sources and are unlikely counterpartsof the very high energy emission.
2. Observations of 1FGL J1808.5–1954c(2FGL 1808.6–1950c)
The GeV source position is known to within 4.7arcmin (95% confidence) and may be associated withthe Be star HD 165783. The optical star has beencorrelated with a serendipitous
XMM-Newton source[Watson et al. 2009], but the pipeline images sufferfrom very high background and the source lies near thechip gaps. Therefore we obtained new
XMM-Newton observations of the field on 2012 March 24, shown inFigure 1. No keV emission is detected at the positionof the proposed optical counterpart HD 165783.We observed HD 165783 using the CTIO 1.5m tele-scope, operated by the SMARTS consortium, and CH-IRON spectrograph between 2011 August and 2011November. The star has a spectral type of B3/5 Ve.It has a high proper motion of 6.4 µ as yr − . We areunable to determine its radial velocity due to the verycomplex structure of the H α emission, shown in Fig- eConf C121028 a r X i v : . [ a s t r o - ph . H E ] M a y th Fermi Symposium : Monterey, CA : 28 Oct-2 Nov 2012
Figure 1: A 17.8 ks XMM-Newton MOS1 image of theHD 168783 field of view. The GeV source position and95% error ellipse are shown in green. The position of theBe star is marked as a red cross, but no keV emission isdetected at that position. However, two unidentified keVsources lie within or near the 2FGL error ellipse.Figure 2: The H α line profile of the Be star HD 168783reveals a complex circumstellar disk structure that makesit difficult to determine the stars radial velocity. ure 2, so its runaway nature cannot be determined.No orbital period is known. This star may be a post-supernova runaway system.The counts map of 1FGL J1808.5–1954c revealsthis source within the crowded Galactic plane region.Since the time our Fermi Cycle 4 proposal was written,the GeV source has been associated with a globularcluster [Nolan et al. 2012]. Figure 3: Fermi counts map of 1FGL J1808.5–1954c.Error ellipses of nearby sources from the 2FGL are shownin yellow.Figure 4: A 13.5 ks
XMM-Newton
MOS2 image of theHD 99771 field of view. The GeV source and Be starpositions are marked in the format of Figure 1. Onceagain, no keV emission is detected at that the Be starsposition. Two unidentified keV sources lie within or nearthe 1FGL error ellipse. eConf C121028 th Fermi Symposium : Monterey, CA : 28 Oct-2 Nov 2012 Figure 5: A binned light curve of 1FGL 1127.7–6244creveals two significant flaring episodes since the Fermimission began.Figure 6:
Fermi
GeV spectrum of 1FGL 1127.7–6244cduring the bright flares.
3. Observations of 1FGL J1127.7–6244c
The second correlation between the 1FGL and theJaschek & Egret [1982] catalog is the star HD 99771.Little is known about the Be star other than its spec-tral type (B7 Vne), and no previously known X-raysources lie within the Fermi 95% error ellipse (7.5arcmin; [Nolan et al. 2012]. We observed the fieldwith
XMM-Newton on 2012 February 4. The result-ing MOS2 image is shown in Figure 4, and we find nokeV source coincident with the Be star’s position.Since the Fermi mission began, 1FGL 1127.7–6244chas experienced two significant flaring episodes. The0.3–300 GeV light curve is shown in Figure 5. TheGeV spectrum and counts map of the source areshown in Figures 6 and 7, respectively. No counter-
Figure 7: A counts map of 1FGL 1127.7–6244c duringthe bright flares. Other nearby sources from the 1FGLand 2FGL catalogs are also labeled. part to this source was noted in the 2FGL catalog[Nolan et al. 2012].
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge support from Fermi Cy-cle 4 through NASA grant NNX11AO41G and fromthe National Science Foundation under grant numberAST-1109247. The CTIO 1.5m telescope is operatedby the SMARTS Consortium.
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