On the detectability of CO molecules in the Interstellar Medium via X-ray spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study investigates the potential to detect CO molecules in the interstellar medium using high-resolution X-ray spectra, finding limited evidence but identifying specific lines-of-sight where CO is present.

Contribution

It introduces a Monte Carlo-based method to assess CO detectability in X-ray spectra and reports the first detection of CO along the line-of-sight to XTE J1817-330.

Findings

Significant CO detection is limited to specific lines-of-sight.

First report of CO detection toward XTE J1718-330.

Estimates a lower limit for CO column density for future detections.

Abstract

We present a study of the detectability of CO molecules in the Galactic interstellar medium using high-resolution X-ray spectra obtained with the XMM-Newton Reflection Grating Spectrometer. We analyzed 10 bright low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) to study the CO contribution in their line-of-sights. A total of 25 observations were fitted with the ISMabs X-ray absorption model which includes photoabsorption cross-sections for O I, O II, O III and CO. We performed a Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation analysis of the goodness of fit in order to estimate the significance of the CO detection. We determine that the statistical analysis prevents a significant detection of CO molecular X-ray absorption features, except for the lines-of-sight toward XTE~J1718-330 and 4U~1636-53. In the case of XTE~J1817-330, this is the first report of the presence of CO along its line-of-sight. Our results reinforce the conclusion that molecules have a minor contribution to the absorption features in the O K-edge spectral region. We estimate a CO column density lower limit to perform a significant detection with XMM-Newton of N(CO) > 6x10^{16} cm-2 for typical exposure times