Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Dust and gas absorption in the high mass X-ray binary IGR J16318-4848

Journal Article · · Astronomy and Astrophysics
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [1];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [10];  [1]
  1. Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Bamberg (Germany)
  2. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics; European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC), Madrid (Spain)
  3. Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD (United States). Center for Space Science and Technology; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  4. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  5. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Space Sciences Lab.
  6. European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC), Madrid (Spain)
  7. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  8. Univ. Tübingen (Germany). Inst. für Astronomie und Astrophysik (IAAT)
  9. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  10. SRON Netherlands Inst. for Space Research, Utrecht (Netherlands)
+ Show Author Affiliations
With an absorption column density on the order of 1024 cm-2, IGR J16318-4848 is one of the most extreme cases of a highly obscured high mass X-ray binary. In addition to the overall continuum absorption, the source spectrum exhibits a strong iron and nickel fluorescence line complex at 6.4 keV. Previous empirical modeling of these features and comparison with radiative transfer simulations raised questions about the structure and covering fraction of the absorber and the profile of the fluorescence lines. We aim at a self-consistent description of the continuum absorption, the absorption edges, and the fluorescence lines to constrain the properties of the absorbing material, such as ionization structure and geometry. We further investigate the effects of dust absorption on the observed spectra and the possibility of fluorescence emission from dust grains. We used XMM-Newton and NuSTAR spectra to first empirically constrain the incident continuum and fluorescence lines. Next we used XSTAR to construct a customized photoionization model where we vary the ionization parameter, column density, and covering fraction. In the third step we modeled the absorption and fluorescence in a dusty olivine absorber and employed both a simple analytical model for the fluorescence line emission and a Monte Carlo simulation of radiative transfer that generates line fluxes, which are very close to the observational data. Our empirical spectral modeling is in agreement with previous works. Our second model, the single gas absorber does not describe the observational data. In particular, irrespective of the ionization state or column density of the absorber, a much higher covering fraction than previously estimated is needed to produce the strong fluorescence lines and the large continuum absorption. A dusty, spherical absorber (modeled as consisting of olivine dust, although the nature of dust cannot be constrained) is able to produce the observed continuum absorption and edges. A dense, dusty absorber in the direct vicinity of the source consisting of dust offers a consistent description of both the strong continuum absorption and the strong emission features in the X-ray spectrum of IGR J16318-4848. In particular, for low optical depth of individual grains, which is the case for typical volume densities and grain size distribution models, the dust will contribute significantly to the fluorescence emission.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Bundesministerium fur Wirtschaft; USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1756729
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL--809486; 1015869
Journal Information:
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Journal Name: Astronomy and Astrophysics Journal Issue: na Vol. 641; ISSN 0004-6361
Publisher:
EDP SciencesCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (50)

The iron Kα Compton shoulder in transmitted and reflected spectra journal November 2002
The properties of the absorbing and line-emitting material in IGR J16318 -- 4848 journal May 2003
Suzaku observation of IGR J16318-4848 journal October 2009
Investigating the interstellar dust through the Fe K-edge journal December 2017
SIXTE: a generic X-ray instrument simulation toolkit journal September 2019
XMM-Newton observatory: I. The spacecraft and operations journal January 2001
The XMM-Newton optical/UV monitor telescope journal January 2001
The Reflection Grating Spectrometer on board XMM-Newton journal January 2001
The European Photon Imaging Camera on XMM-Newton: The pn-CCD camera journal January 2001
INTEGRAL discovery of a bright highly obscured galactic X-ray binary source IGR J16318-4848 journal November 2003
The XMM-Newton/INTEGRAL monitoring campaign of IGR J16318-4848 journal December 2006
Atomic form factors, incoherent scattering functions, and photon scattering cross sections journal July 1975
A Review, Bibliography, and Tabulation of K , L , and Higher Atomic Shell X‐Ray Fluorescence Yields journal March 1994
The Interaction of X-Ray Sources with Optically Thin Environments journal June 1969
Interstellar Absorption of X-Rays journal January 1974
The size distribution of interstellar grains journal October 1977
On searches for pulsed emission with application to four globular cluster X-ray sources - NGC 1851, 6441, 6624, and 6712 journal March 1983
Optical properties of interstellar graphite and silicate grains journal October 1984
Atomic Data for Astrophysics. II. New Analytic FITS for Photoionization Cross Sections of Atoms and Ions journal July 1996
On the Absorption of X‐Rays in the Interstellar Medium journal October 2000
Photoionization and High‐Density Gas journal March 2001
Statistics, Handle with Care: Detecting Multiple Model Components with the Likelihood Ratio Test journal May 2002
Dust Grain Size Distributions from MRN to MEM journal May 2003
Scattering by Interstellar Dust Grains. II. X‐Rays journal December 2003
The Optical/Near‐Infrared Counterpart of the INTEGRAL Obscured Source IGR J16318−4848: An sgB[e] in a High‐Mass X‐Ray Binary? journal November 2004
Determining the Grain Composition of the Interstellar Medium with High‐Resolution X‐Ray Spectroscopy journal April 2005
The Rich Mid-Infrared Environments of Two Highly Obscured X-Ray Binaries: Spitzer Observations of IGR J16318-4848 and GX 301-2 journal November 2007
emcee : The MCMC Hammer
  • Foreman-Mackey, Daniel; Hogg, David W.; Lang, Dustin
  • Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 125, Issue 925 https://doi.org/10.1086/670067
journal March 2013
Condensed Matter Astrophysics: a Prescription for Determining the Species-Specific Composition and Quantity of Interstellar dust Using X-Rays journal August 2009
BROADBAND ESO/VISIR- SPITZER INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY OF THE OBSCURED SUPERGIANT X-RAY BINARY IGR J16318-4848 journal May 2012
Studies in Astronomical time Series Analysis. vi. Bayesian Block Representations journal February 2013
Properties of dust Grains Probed with Extinction Curves journal May 2013
THE NUCLEAR SPECTROSCOPIC TELESCOPE ARRAY ( NuSTAR ) HIGH-ENERGY X-RAY MISSION journal May 2013
X-ray reflection from cold matter in Active Galactic Nuclei and X-ray binaries journal March 1991
Monte Carlo simulations of X-ray spectra for internally illuminated spherical matter distributions journal July 1993
Angle-dependent Compton reflection of X-rays and gamma-rays journal April 1995
Sensitivity of the Fe Kα Compton shoulder to the geometry and variability of the X-ray illumination of cosmic objects journal July 2016
The dust-scattering component of X-ray extinction: effects on continuum fitting and high-resolution absorption edge structure journal February 2016
Orbital variations in intensity and spectral properties of the highly obscured sgHMXB IGR J16318−4848 journal June 2017
Valence-electron configuration of Fe, Cr, and Ni in binary and ternary alloys from K β -to- K α x-ray intensity ratios journal November 2009
X-Ray Wavelengths journal January 1967
An XMM-Newton survey of broad iron lines in Seyfert galaxies journal November 2007
Interstellar Dust Grains journal September 2003
The Chemical Composition of the Sun journal September 2009
Ensemble samplers with affine invariance journal January 2010
Accurate Modeling of X-Ray Extinction by Interstellar Grains journal January 2016
The Impact of Accurate Extinction Measurements for X-Ray Spectral Models journal February 2016
Iron: a key Element for Understanding the Origin and Evolution of Interstellar dust journal July 2016
Measurement of the Oxidation State of Fe in the ISM Using X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy journal February 2019
Optical and Infrared Study of the Obscured B[e] Supergiant High-mass X-Ray Binary IGR J16318–4848 journal May 2020

Similar Records

Glimpse of the highly obscured HMXB IGR J16318-4848 with Hitomi*
Journal Article · Wed Feb 28 19:00:00 EST 2018 · Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan · OSTI ID:1458449
How to reveal the mysteries of the most obscured high-energy sources of our Galaxy, discovered by INTEGRAL?
Journal Article · Thu Jul 12 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · AIP Conference Proceedings · OSTI ID:21067223
BROADBAND ESO/VISIR-SPITZER INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY OF THE OBSCURED SUPERGIANT X-RAY BINARY IGR J16318-4848
Journal Article · Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012 · Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:22037133

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
circumstellar matter
dust
extinction
individual x-rays
x-ray binaries