Primordial Globular Clusters, X-Ray Binaries & Cosmological Reionisation

TL;DR

This paper models the X-ray and UV contributions of primordial globular clusters to the epoch of reionisation, highlighting the potential significance of high-mass X-ray binaries in ionising the early universe.

Contribution

It introduces Monte Carlo models to estimate X-ray luminosity from HMXBs in primordial globular clusters and compares their ionising impact to that of massive stars.

Findings

HMXBs can be as important as massive stars in ionising hydrogen.

X-ray luminosity peaks early and declines over tens of millions of years.

HMXBs contribute significantly to the X-ray background at high redshift.

Abstract

Globular clusters are dense stellar systems that have typical ages of ~13 billion years, implying that they formed at redshifts of z>~6. Massive stars in newly formed or primordial globular clusters could have played an important role during the epoch of cosmological reionisation (z>~6) as sources of energetic, neutral hydrogen ionising UV photons. We investigate whether or not these stars could have been as important in death as sources of energetic X-ray photons as they were during their main sequence lives. Most massive stars are expected to form in binaries, and an appreciable fraction of these (as much as ~30%) will evolve into X-ray luminous (L_X~10^38 erg/s) high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs). These sources would have made a contribution to the X-ray background at z>~6. Using Monte Carlo models of a globular cluster, we estimate the total X-ray luminosity of a population of HMXBs. We compare and contrast this with the total UV luminosity of the massive stars during their main sequence lives. For reasonable estimates, we find that the bolometric luminosity of the cluster peaks at ~10^42 erg/s during the first few million years, but declines to ~10^41 erg/s after ~5 million years as the most massive stars evolve off the main sequence. From this time onwards, the total bolometric luminosity is dominated by HMXBs and falls gradually to ~10^40 erg/s after ~50 million years. Assuming a power-law spectral energy distribution for the HMXBs, we calculate the effective number of neutral hydrogen ionisations per HMXB and show that HMXBs can be as important as sources of ionising radiation as massive stars. Finally we discuss the implications of our results for modelling galaxy formation at high redshift and the prospects of using globular clusters as probes of reionisation.