Massive X-ray binaries: New developments in the INTEGRAL era

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in understanding massive X-ray binaries, highlighting how INTEGRAL's discoveries of absorbed-spectrum systems challenge previous models and open new research avenues.

Contribution

It introduces a new population of absorbed-spectrum massive X-ray binaries discovered by INTEGRAL, expanding the understanding of their formation and evolution.

Findings

Discovery of a new class of absorbed-spectrum X-ray binaries

Challenges to existing models of binary evolution

Implications for future research directions

Abstract

The study of massive X-ray binaries provides important observational diagnostics for a number of fundamental astrophysical issues, such as the evolution of massive stars, the stellar winds of massive stars, the formation of compact objects and accretion processes. More than three decades of study have led to a coherent picture of their formation and evolution and some understanding of the physical mechanisms involved. As more and more systems are discovered, this picture grows in complexity. Over the last two years, INTEGRAL has discovered a new population of massive X-ray binaries, characterised by absorbed spectra, which challenges some of our previous assumptions and guarantees that this will be a major subject of research for the near future.