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Register a new userResults of a search for new microquasars in the Galaxy
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M. Ribo
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We present here the results of a search for new microquasars at low galactic latitudes, based on a cross-identification between the ROSAT all sky Bright Source Catalog (RBSC) and the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) and follow-up observations. The results obtained up to now suggest that persistent/silent microquasars such as LS 5039 are rare objects in our Galaxy, and indicate that future deeper surveys, and harder than the RBSC in X-rays, will play a fundamental role in order to discover them.
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A complete sample of bright ROSAT sources with hard XRB-like spectra in the Galactic Plane (|b| < 15 deg.) has been tentatively identified with radio sources in the GB6/PMN/NVSS surveys, and subsequently observed with the Australia Telescope Compact Array and the Very Large Array. Most of them are unresolved at the sub-arcsec scale and have flat or inverted spectra. Precise radio coordinates have made unambiguous optical identifications possible, which, after the removal of galaxies, yielded a final list of 40 microquasar candidates. They are successfully going through the moderate dispersion spectroscopy by the 4-m telescope of the Anglo-Australian Observatory. Our goal is to obtain evidence for a characteristic accreting behaviour and establish binarity, thence permitting actual microquasar classification. VLBI observations of the brightest candidates are also underway. We expect some of these objects could be QSOs, or radio galaxies, or cataclysmic variables. However, this would be a valuable by-product of the proposed program. Photometry of these objects dedicated to find possible eclipses and, also, characteristic accreting disc driven flares.
Microquasars with high-mass companion stars are promising very-high-energy (VHE; 0.1-100 TeV) gamma-ray emitters, but their behaviors above 10 TeV are poorly known. Using the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, we search for excess gamma-ray emission coincident with the positions of known high-mass microquasars (HMMQs). No significant emission is observed for LS 5039, Cygnus X-1, Cygnus X-3, and SS 433 with 1,523 days of HAWC data. We set the most stringent limit above 10 TeV obtained to date on each individual source. Under the assumption that HMMQs produce gamma rays via a common mechanism, we have performed source-stacking searches, considering two different scenarios: I) gamma-ray luminosity is a fraction $epsilon_gamma$ of the microquasar jet luminosity, and II) very-high-energy gamma rays are produced by relativistic electrons up-scattering the radiation field of the companion star in a magnetic field $B$. We obtain $epsilon_gamma < 5.4times 10^{-6}$ for scenario I, which tightly constrains models that suggest observable high-energy neutrino emission by HMMQs. In the case of scenario II, the non-detection of VHE gamma rays yields a strong magnetic field, which challenges synchrotron radiation as the dominant mechanism of the microquasar emission between 10 keV and 10 MeV.
We present follow-up spectroscopy of emission line candidates detected on near-infrared narrow band images in the inner Galaxy (Homeier et al. 2003). The filters are optimized for the detection of Wolf-Rayet stars and other objects which exhibit emission--lines in the 2 $mu$m region. Approximately three square degrees along the Galactic plane have been analyzed in seven narrow--filters (four emission--lines and three continuum). We have discovered 4 new Wolf-Rayet stars and present coordinates, finding charts, and K-band spectra.
Star-formation in the outer Galaxy is thought to be different from the inner Galaxy, as it is subject to different environmental parameters such as metallicity, interstellar radiation field, or mass surface density that all change with Galactocentric radius. We therefore aimed at getting a more detailed view on the structure of the outer Galaxy, determining physical properties for a large number of star forming clumps and understanding star-formation outside the Solar circle. We use pointed $^{12}$CO(2-1) observations conducted with the APEX telescope to determine the velocity components towards 830 dust clumps identified from 250 $mu$m Herschel/Hi-GAL SPIRE emission maps in the outer Galaxy between $225deg<ell<260deg$. We determined kinematic distances from the velocity components, in order to analyze the structure of the outer Galaxy and to estimate physical properties such as dust temperatures, bolometric luminosities, clump masses, and H2 column densities for 611 clumps. We find the CO clouds to be strongly correlated with the highest column density parts of the Hi emission distribution, spanning a web of bridges, spurs and blobs of star forming regions between the larger complexes, unveiling the complex three-dimensional structure of the outer Galaxy in unprecedented detail. Using the physical properties of the clumps, we find an upper limit of 6% (40 sources) to be able to form high-mass stars. This is supported by the fact that only 2 methanol Class II masers or 34 known or candidate Hii regions are found in the whole survey area, indicating an even lower fraction to be able to form high-mass stars in the outer Galaxy. We fail to find any correlation of the physical parameters of the identified (potential) star forming regions with the expanding supershell, indicating that although the shell organizes the interstellar material into clumps, their properties are unaffected.
Results are presented on a search for neutrino emission from a sample of six microquasars, based on the data collected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope between 2007 and 2010. By means of appropriate time cuts, the neutrino search has been restricted to the periods when the acceleration of relativistic jets was taking place at the microquasars under study. The time cuts have been chosen using the information from the X-ray telescopes RXTE/ASM and Swift/BAT, and, in one case, the gamma-ray telescope Fermi/LAT. Since none of the searches has produced a statistically significant signal, upper limits on the neutrino fluences are derived and compared to the predictions from theoretical models.
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