Chemical Abundances of the Secondary Star in the Black Hole X-ray Binary XTE J1118+480

TL;DR

This study analyzes the chemical abundances of the secondary star in the black hole X-ray binary XTE J1118+480 to infer its formation history and supernova explosion characteristics, ruling out a halo origin and favoring a thin disk origin with asymmetric supernova models.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed abundance analysis including Si and Ti for this system and compares observed data with explosion models to constrain its formation environment.

Findings

Metal-rich models best fit observed abundances.

Halo origin rejected based on abundance patterns.

Asymmetric supernova models explain system's current orbit.

Abstract

Following the recent abundance measurements of Mg, Al, Ca, Fe, and Ni in the black hole X-ray binary XTE J1118+480 using medium-resolution Keck II/ESI spectra of the secondary star (Gonz\'alez Hern\'andez et al. 2006), we perform a detailed abundance analysis including the abundances of Si and Ti. These element abundances, higher than solar, indicate that the black hole in this system formed in a supernova event, whose nucleosynthetic products could pollute the atmosphere of the secondary star, providing clues on the possible formation region of the system, either Galactic halo, thick disk, or thin disk. We explore a grid of explosion models with different He core masses, metallicities, and geometries. Metal-poor models associated with a formation scenario in the Galactic halo provide unacceptable fits to the observed abundances, allowing us to reject a halo origin for this X-ray binary. The thick-disk scenario produces better fits, although they require substantial fallback and very efficient mixing processes between the inner layers of the explosion and the ejecta, making quite unlikely an origin in the thick disk. The best agreement between the model predictions and the observed abundances is obtained for metal-rich progenitor models. In particular, non-spherically symmetric models are able to explain, without strong assumptions of extensive fallback and mixing, the observed abundances. Moreover, asymmetric mass ejection in a supernova explosion could account for the required impulse necessary to launch the system from its formation region in the Galactic thin disk to its current halo orbit.