A search for signatures of interactions of X-ray binary outflows with their environments with ALMA

TL;DR

This study used ALMA to observe X-ray binaries, detecting continuum emission linked to jets and exploring line emissions, finding no significant jet-ISM interaction signatures but identifying potential star-forming activity in the field of GX13+1.

Contribution

First ALMA observations of multiple X-ray binaries focusing on jet interactions and molecular line emissions, revealing new potential star-forming regions and maser activity.

Findings

Detected unresolved continuum emission associated with jets.

No significant line emission from jet-ISM interaction regions.

Identified potential star-forming activity via SiO, SO, and CH3OH emissions.

Abstract

We observed the X-ray binaries CirX-1, ScoX-1, GRS 1915+105, GX13+1, and CygX-1 with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Unresolved continuum emission is found at the positions of all the sources at a frequency of 92 GHz, with flux densities ranging between 0.8 and 10 mJy/beam. In all cases the emission can be associated with jets that have been extensively observed at lower frequencies. We searched for line emission from H$\alpha$ recombination, SiO,H2O, and CH3OH at the positions of all the sources and, for CirX-1 and CygX-1, also at regions where shocks associated with an interaction between the jet and the interstellar medium had previously been observed. The search did not yield any significant detection, resulting in 3$\sigma$ upper limits between 0.65 and 3.7 K km s$^{-1}$ for the existence of line emission in these regions. In contrast, we detected spatially unresolved SiO emission in the field of view of GX13+1, and we tentatively associate this emission with a SiO maser in a potential young stellar object or evolved star. We also found spatially extended line emission at two additional sites in the field of view of GX13+1 that we tentatively associate with emission from SO and CH3OH; we speculate that it may be associated with a star-forming region, but again we cannot rule out alternative origins such as emission from evolved stars.