Herschel observations of INTEGRAL supergiant High Mass X-ray Binaries

TL;DR

This study uses Herschel infrared observations to investigate the surrounding material of INTEGRAL supergiant High Mass X-ray Binaries, aiming to understand their environment, formation, and evolution.

Contribution

It provides new infrared data to characterize the dust and cold gas around these rare, short-lived binary systems, enhancing understanding of their nature and development.

Findings

Detection of absorbing material around HMXBs

Characterization of dust and cold gas environments

Insights into the formation and evolution of supergiant HMXBs

Abstract

We present preliminary results on Herschel/PACS mid/far-infrared photometric observations of INTEGRAL supergiant High Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs), with the aim of detecting the presence and characterizing the nature of absorbing material (dust and/or cold gas), either enshrouding the whole binary systems, or surrounding the sources within their close environment. These unique observations allow us to better characterize the nature of these HMXBs, to constrain the link with their environment (impact and feedback), and finally to get a better understanding of the formation and evolution of such rare and short-living supergiant HMXBs in our Galaxy.