On the Absence of Non-thermal X-Ray Emission around Runaway O Stars
Toala$^1$, Oskinova$^2$, Ignace$^3$
1 - Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA, Taiwan); 2 - Institute for Physics and Astronomy, University of Postdam (Germany); 3 - Department of Physics and Astronomy, East Tennessee State University (USA)
Theoretical models predict that the compressed interstellar medium around runaway O stars can produce high-energy non-thermal diffuse emission, in particular, non-thermal X-ray and γ-ray emission. So far, detection of non-thermal X-ray emission was claimed for only one runaway star, AE Aur. We present a search for non-thermal diffuse X-ray emission from bow shocks using archived XMM-Newton observations for a clean sample of six well-determined runaway O stars. We find that none of these objects present diffuse X-ray emission associated with their bow shocks, similarly to previous X-ray studies toward ζ Oph and BD+43°3654. We carefully investigated multi-wavelength observations of AE Aur and could not confirm previous findings of non-thermal X-rays. We conclude that so far there is no clear evidence of non-thermal extended emission in bow shocks around runaway O stars.
Reference: ApJL, 838, L19
Status: Manuscript has been accepted
Weblink: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aa667c/pdf
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Email: toala@asiaa.sinica.edu.tw