High-mass X-ray binary systems in the INTEGRAL surveys: the population properties and physical processes near the neutron star

A.A. Lutovinov

Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Profsoyuznaya Str. 84/32, Moscow 117997, Russia

(по материалам докторской диссертации)

This work is based on the deep surveys of the Milky Way and Large Magellanic Cloud performed with the INTEGRAL observatory in 2003-2011. These observations allowed us to construct a statistically full and mostly deep flux limited sample of high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) in the Galaxy and to investigate their spatial distribution and luminosity function. In particular, it was shown that the measured spatial density distribution of HMXBs has the maximum at galactocentric distances of 2-8 kpc and correlates well with the star formation rate distribution in the Galaxy. We performed an extensive program of an identification of hard X-ray sources and established a nature of more than twenty objects, seven of which are HMXBs or candidates to them. It was found that several of these systems are located behind the Galactic Center. We proposed a "toy" model, which allow to explain observable properties of persistent HMXBs with wind-fed neutron stars – the luminosity function and distribution over orbital periods. Based on this model we argued that a flaring activity of the so-called supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs), the recently recognized sub-sample of HMXBs, is likely related with the magnetic arrest of their accretion. In frames of this work detailed studies of X-ray pulsars (vast majority of which are belong to HMXBs) were performed as well. In particular, it was discovered a hard X-ray emission (up to energies of 160 keV) from low luminosity X-ray pulsars, measured the magnetic field near the surface of neutron stars, studied in details dependence of the cyclotron line parameters on the source luminosity.
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