Finding the birthplace of HMXBs in the Galaxy using Gaia EDR3: kinematical age determination through orbit integration

Abstract

High-Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs) are produced after the first supernova event in a massive binary. These objects are intrinsically young, and can suffer from a significant natal kick. As such, the progenitors of HMXBs are likely to have formed away from the current location of the X-ray emitting systems. We aim to find the birthplace of the known HMXBs of our Milky Way. Specifically, we want to answer the question whether the formation of HMXBs can be associated to open stellar clusters and/or Galactic spiral structures, and infer from that the time elapsed since the first supernova event. We use astrometric data from the Gaia EDR3 to initialize the position and velocity of each known HMXBs from the Galaxy, and integrate their motion back in time. In parallel, we perform the same calculations on a sample of 1381 open clusters detected by Gaia as well as for four Galactic spiral arms which shape and motion have also been recently modelled using Gaia data. We report on all the encounter candidates between HMXBs and clusters or spiral arms in the past 100 Myr. In our sample of 26 HMXBs, we infer that 7 were born in clusters, 8 were born near a Galactic spiral arm, and conclude that 7 others could have formed isolated. The birthplaces of the remaining 4 HMXBs are still inconclusive due to a combination of great distance, poor astrometric data and lack of known open cluster in the vicinity. We provide the kinematical age since supernova of 15 HMXBs. The astrometry from Gaia and the orbit integration we employ are effective at finding the birthplaces of HMXBs in the Milky Way. By considering the biases in our data and method, we find it is likely that the progenitors of HMXBs preferentially formed alongside other massive stars in open clusters.

19 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

References in corpus (26)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• The Gaia mission
• Estimating distances from parallaxes. V: Geometric and photogeometric distances to 1.47 billion stars in Gaia Early Data Release 3
• galpy: A Python Library for Galactic Dynamics
• Painting a portrait of the Galactic disc with its stellar clusters
• Catalogue of high-mass X-ray binaries in the Galaxy ($4^{th}$ edition)
• A catalog of newly identified star clusters in GAIA DR2
• The ephemeris, orbital decay, and masses of 10 eclipsing HMXBs
• The Proper Motion of Sagittarius A*: III. The Case for a Supermassive Black Hole
• 3D kinematics and age distribution of the Open Cluster population
• The Complete Evolution of a Neutron-Star Binary through a Common Envelope Phase Using 1D Hydrodynamic Simulations
• Determination of the mass of the neutron star in SMC X-1, LMC X-4 and Cen X-3 with VLT/UVES
• VLT/UVES spectroscopy of Wray 977, the hypergiant companion to the X-ray pulsar GX301-2
• On the Milky Way spiral arms from open clusters in Gaia EDR3
• Evidence of a dynamically evolving Galactic warp
• Distribution of High-Mass X-ray Binaries in the Milky Way
• A microquasar shot out from its birth place
• Evolution of Spin, Orbital, and Superorbital Modulations of 4U 0114+650
• Constraints to neutron-star kicks in High-Mass X-ray Binaries with Gaia EDR3
• Confirming NGC 6231 as the parent cluster of the runaway high-mass X-ray binary HD 153919/4U 1700-37 with Gaia DR2
• Orbital parameters of the high-mass X-ray binary 4U 2206+54
• An optical spectroscopic and polarimetric study of the microquasar binary system SS 433
• The origin of the high-mass X-ray binary 4U 2206+54/BD +53 2790
• Formation of High-Mass stars in an isolated environment in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Evidence for low kick velocities among high-mass X-ray binaries in the Small Magellanic Cloud from the spatial correlation function
• Spectroscopic study of the optical counterpart to the Fast X-ray Transient IGR J17544-2619 based on observations at the 1.5-m RTT-150 telescope

Cited by in corpus (4)

• A catalogue of high-mass X-ray binaries in the Galaxy: from the INTEGRAL to the Gaia era
• X-Ray Views of Galactic Accreting Pulsars in High-Mass X-Ray Binaries
• The Spatial Correlation of High Mass X-ray Binaries and Young Star Clusters in Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies
• An observational study of rotation and binarity of Galactic O-type runaway stars