Related papers: Structure and Dynamics of Stellar Winds in High-ma…
It is commonly adopted that X-rays from O stars are produced deep inside the stellar wind, and transported outwards through the bulk of the expanding matter which attenuates the radiation and affects the shape of emission line profiles.…
High-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) are exceptional astrophysical laboratories that offer a rare glimpse into the physical processes that govern accretion on compact objects, massive-star winds, and stellar evolution. In a subset of the HMXBs,…
Bright and eclipsing, the high-mass X-ray binary Vela X-1 offers a unique opportunity to study accretion onto a neutron star from clumpy winds of O/B stars and to disentangle the complex accretion geometry of these systems. In Chandra-HETGS…
We provide a brief review of the physical processes behind the radiative driving of the winds of OB stars and the Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton capture and accretion of a fraction of the stellar wind by a compact object, typically a neutron star,…
In high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs), the compact object accretes the strong stellar wind of an O-B supergiant companion star. X-ray flux variations alter the stellar wind's ionization state and optical line profiles, which are key in the…
It is observationally as well as theoretically well established that the winds of hot, massive OB-stars are highly structured on a broad range of spatial scales. This paper first discusses consequences of the small-scale structures…
Observations with powerful X-ray telescopes, such as XMM-Newton and Chandra, significantly advance our understanding of massive stars. Nearly all early-type stars are X-ray sources. Studies of their X-ray emission provide important…
Winds of massive stars are suspected to be inhomogeneous (or clumpy), which biases the measures of their mass loss rates. In High Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs), the compact object can be used as an orbiting X-ray point source to probe the…
In this review I first describe the nature of the three kinds of High-Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs), accreting through: (i) Be circumstellar disc, (ii) supergiant stellar wind, and (iii) Roche lobe filling supergiants. I then report on the…
Strong stellar winds are an important feature in wind-accreting high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB) systems, providing insights into stellar evolution and their impact on surrounding environments. However, the long-term evolution and temporal…
X-ray line profiles represent a new way of studying the winds of massive stars. In particular, they enable us to probe in detail the wind-wind collision in colliding wind binaries, providing new insights into the structure and dynamics of…
It has been proposed multiple times to use the neutron star (NS) in high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) as an orbiting X-ray probe embedded in the wind-fed of its supergiant (SG) companion in order to constrain the stellar line-driven wind…
High-mass X-ray binary systems are powered by the stellar wind of their donor stars. The X-ray state of Cygnus X-1 is correlated with the properties of the wind which defines the environment of mass accretion. Chandra-HETGS observations…
We describe here the nature, formation and evolution of the supergiant high mass X-ray binary (HMXB) population, i.e. systems accreting the stellar wind of supergiant stars. There are now many new observations, from the high-energy side…
The Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray telescopes have led to numerous advances in the study and understanding of astrophysical X-ray sources. Particularly important has been the much increased spectral resolution of modern X-ray instrumentation.…
Thanks to the high sensitivity of the instruments on board the XMM-Newton and Chandra satellites, it has become possible to explore the properties of the X-ray emission from hot subdwarfs. The small but growing sample of hot subdwarfs…
Nearly all types of massive stars with radiatively driven stellar winds are X-ray sources that can be observed by the presently operating powerful X-ray telescopes. In this review I briefly address recent advances in our understanding of…
The aim of this PhD Thesis is to characterize a representative sample of Supergiant X-ray Binaries (SGXBs) formed by 4 sources: XTE J1855-026, a classical SGXB with long-term stable X-ray flux; AX J1841.0-0535 and AX J1845.0-0433, two…
In this paper we survey the theory of wind accretion in high mass X-ray binaries hosting a magnetic neutron star and a supergiant companion. We concentrate on the different types of interaction between the inflowing wind matter and the…
In wind-powered X-ray binaries, the radiatively driven stellar wind from the primary may be inhibited by the X-ray irradiation. This creates the feedback that limits the X-ray luminosity of the compact secondary. Wind inhibition might be…