A Panchromatic Study of the X-ray Binary Population in NGC 300 on Sub-Galactic Scales
Abstract
The population-wide properties and demographics of extragalactic X-ray binaries (XRBs) correlate with the star formation rates (SFRs), stellar masses (), and environmental factors (such as metallicity, ) of their host galaxy. Although there is evidence that XRB scaling relations (/SFR for high mass XRBs [HMXBs] and / for low mass XRBs [LMXBs]) may depend on metallicity and stellar age across large samples of XRB-hosting galaxies, disentangling the effects of metallicity and stellar age from stochastic effects, particularly on subgalactic scales, remains a challenge. We use archival X-ray through IR observations of the nearby galaxy NGC 300 to self-consistently model the broadband spectral energy distribution and examine radial trends in its XRB population. We measure a current (100 Myr) SFR of 0.180.08 yr and = . Although we measure a metallicity gradient and radially resolved star formation histories that are consistent with the literature, there is a clear excess in the number of X-ray sources below erg s that are likely a mix of variable XRBs and additional background AGN. When we compare the subgalactic /SFR ratios as a function of to the galaxy-integrated -SFR- relationships from the literature, we find that only the regions hosting the youngest (30 Myr) HMXBs agree with predictions, hinting at time evolution of the -SFR- relationship.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2404.19129,
title = {A Panchromatic Study of the X-ray Binary Population in NGC 300 on Sub-Galactic Scales},
author = {Breanna A. Binder and Rosalie Williams and Jacob Payne and Michael Eracleous and Alexander Belles and Benjamin F. Williams},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.19129},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
Accepted to AAS Journals; 22 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables