English

Sub-galactic scaling relations between X-ray luminosity, star-formation rate, and stellar mass

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2020-04-22 v1

Abstract

X-ray luminosity (LXL_X) originating from high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) is tightly correlated with the host galaxy's star-formation rate (SFR). We explore this connection at sub-galactic scales spanning {\sim}7 dex in SFR and {\sim}8 dex in specific SFR (sSFR). There is good agreement with established relations down to SFR103Myr1{\rm SFR {\simeq} 10^{-3}\,M_\odot \, yr^{-1}}, below which an excess of X-ray luminosity emerges. This excess likely arises from low mass X-ray binaries. The intrinsic scatter of the LXL_X-SFR relation is constant, not correlated with SFR. Different star formation indicators scale with LXL_X in different ways, and we attribute the differences to the effect of star formation history. The SFR derived from Hα\alpha shows the tightest correlation with X-ray luminosity because Hα\alpha emission probes stellar populations with ages similar to HMXB formation timescales, but the Hα\alpha-based SFR is reliable only for sSFR>1012Myr1/M\rm sSFR{>}10^{-12}\,M_\odot \, yr^{-1}/M_\odot.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.09873,
  title  = {Sub-galactic scaling relations between X-ray luminosity, star-formation rate, and stellar mass},
  author = {Konstantinos Kouroumpatzakis and Andreas Zezas and Paul Sell and Konstantinos Kovlakas and Paolo Bonfini and Steven Willner and Matthew Ashby and Alexandros Maragkoudakis and Thomas Jarrett},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.09873},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

19 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS (2020-04-19)

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:59:30.674Z