The Galactic high mass X-ray binary population with Fermi -LAT

TL;DR

This study investigates gamma-ray emissions from 114 Galactic high mass X-ray binaries using 12.5 years of Fermi-LAT data, identifying potential new gamma-ray sources and analyzing their origins.

Contribution

The paper presents the first systematic search for gamma-ray emission from a large sample of Galactic high mass X-ray binaries using extensive Fermi-LAT data.

Findings

Gamma-ray excesses found in 20 binaries, with some likely false positives.

Tentative gamma-ray emission indicators identified in several new systems.

Many gamma-ray excesses attributed to source confusion or background effects.

Abstract

We search for gamma-ray emission from 114 Galactic high mass X-ray binaries, including 4 well studied catalogued sources, in 12.5 years of Fermi-LAT data in conjunction with the 10-year point source catalogue. Where a gamma-ray excess appears to be spatially coincident with an X-ray binary, further investigation is performed to ascertain whether this excess is the product of physical processes within the binary system itself. We identify gamma-ray excesses coincident with 20 high mass X-ray binaries where there is little or no prior evidence for gamma-ray emission. However, we find that many of these are false positives caused by source confusion or the gamma-ray background. Nonetheless, tentative but promising indicators of gamma-ray emission are identified for several new systems, notably including 1A 0535+262, RX J2030.5+4751 and SAX J1324.4-6200.