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Register a new userNon-Thermal Radio Emission from Colliding-Wind Binaries
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Authors
R. Blomme
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In colliding-wind binaries, shocks accelerate a fraction of the electrons up to relativistic speeds. These electrons then emit synchrotron radiation at radio wavelengths. Whether or not we detect this radiation depends on the size of the free-free absorption region in the stellar winds of both components. One expects long-period binaries to be detectable, but not the short-period ones. It was therefore surprising to find that Cyg OB2 No. 8A (P = 21.9 d) does show variability locked with orbital phase. To investigate this, we developed a model for the relativistic electron generation (including cooling and advection) and the radiative transfer of the synchrotron emission through the stellar wind. Using this model, we show that the synchrotron emitting region in Cyg OB2 No. 8A does extend far enough beyond the free-free absorption region to generate orbit-locked variability in the radio flux. This model can also be applied to other non-thermal emitters and will prove useful in interpreting observations from future surveys, such as COBRaS - the Cyg OB2 Radio Survey.
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The importance of shocks in nova explosions has been highlighted by Fermis discovery of gamma-ray producing novae. Over three years of multi-band VLA radio observations of the 2010 nova V1723 Aql show that shocks between fast and slow flows within the ejecta led to the acceleration of particles and the production of synchrotron radiation. Soon after the start of the eruption, shocks in the ejecta produced an unexpected radio flare, resulting in a multi-peaked radio light curve. The emission eventually became consistent with an expanding thermal remnant with mass $2 times 10^{-4} M_odot$ and temperature $10^4$ K. However, during the first two months, the $gtrsim 10^6$ K brightness temperature at low frequencies was too high to be due to thermal emission from the small amount of X-ray producing shock-heated gas. Radio imaging showed structures with velocities of 400 km s$^{-1}$ (d/6 kpc) in the plane of the sky, perpendicular to a more elongated 1500 km s$^{-1}$ (d/6 kpc) flow. The morpho-kinematic structure of the ejecta from V1723 Aql appears similar to nova V959 Mon, where collisions between a slow torus and a faster flow collimated the fast flow and gave rise to gamma -ray producing shocks. Optical spectroscopy and X-ray observations of V1723 Aql during the radio flare are consistent with this picture. Our observations support the idea that shocks in novae occur when a fast flow collides with a slow collimating torus. Such shocks could be responsible for hard X-ray emission, gamma -ray production, and double-peaked radio light curves from some classical novae.
Some OB stars show variable non-thermal radio emission. The non-thermal emission is due to synchrotron radiation that is emitted by electrons accelerated to high energies. The electron acceleration occurs at strong shocks created by the collision of radiatively-driven stellar winds in binary systems. Here we present results of our modelling of two colliding wind systems: Cyg OB2 No. 8A and Cyg OB2 No. 9.
We have developed radiative transfer models of the radio emission from colliding-wind binaries (CWB) based on a hydrodynamical treatment of the wind-collision region (WCR). The archetype of CWB systems is the 7.9-yr period binary WR140, which exhibits dramatic variations at radio wavelengths. High-resolution radio observations of WR140 permit a determination of several system parameters, particularly orbit inclination and distance, that are essential for any models of this system. A model fit to data at orbital phase 0.9 is shown, and some short comings of our model described.
The dynamics of colliding wind binary systems and conditions for efficient particle acceleration therein have attracted multiple numerical studies in the recent years. These numerical models seek an explanation of the thermal and non-thermal emission of these systems as seen by observations. In the non-thermal regime, radio and X-ray emission is observed for several of these colliding-wind binaries, while gamma-ray emission has so far only been found in $eta$ Carinae and possibly in WR 11. Energetic electrons are deemed responsible for a large fraction of the observed high-energy photons in these systems. Only in the gamma-ray regime there might be, depending on the properties of the stars, a significant contribution of emission from neutral pion decay. Thus, studying the emission from colliding-wind binaries requires detailed models of the acceleration and propagation of energetic electrons. This in turn requires a detailed understanding of the magnetic field, which will not only affect the energy losses of the electrons but in case of synchrotron emission also the directional dependence of the emissivity. In this study we investigate magnetohydrodynamic simulations of different colliding wind binary systems with magnetic fields that are strong enough to have a significant effect on the winds. Such strong fields require a detailed treatment of the near-star wind acceleration zone. We show the implementation of such simulations and discuss results that demonstrate the effect of the magnetic field on the structure of the wind collision region.
We present a model for the non-thermal emission from a colliding-wind binary. Relativistic protons and electrons are assumed to be accelerated through diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) at the global shocks bounding the wind-wind collision region. The non-linear effects of the back-reaction due to the cosmic ray pressure on the particle acceleration process and the cooling of the non-thermal particles as they flow downstream from the shocks are included. We explore how the non-thermal particle distribution and the keV-GeV emission changes with the stellar separation and the viewing angle of the system, and with the momentum ratio of the winds. We confirm earlier findings that DSA is very efficient when magnetic field amplification is not included, leading to significantly modified shocks. We also find that the non-thermal flux scales with the binary separation in a complicated way and that the anisotropic inverse Compton emission shows only a moderate variation with viewing angle due to the spatial extent of the wind-wind collision.
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