How to reveal the mysteries of the most obscured high-energy sources of our Galaxy, discovered by INTEGRAL?

Sylvain Chaty (1, 2)

1 DAP - Département d'Astrophysique (ex SAP)
2 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation

A new type of high-energy binary systems has been revealed by the INTEGRAL satellite. These sources are in the course of being unveiled by means of multi-wavelength optical, near- and mid-infrared observations. Among these sources, two distinct classes are appearing: the first one is constituted of intrinsically obscured high-energy sources, of which IGR J16318-4848 seems to be the most extreme example. The second one is populated by the so-called supergiant fast X-ray transients, with IGR J17544-2619 being the archetype. We report here on multi-wavelength optical to mid-infrared observations of these systems. We show that in the case of the obscured sources our observations suggest the presence of absorbing material (dust and/or cold gas) enshrouding the whole binary system. We then discuss the nature of these two different types of systems.

Mots clés: X-ray binary stars; Galaxy; X-ray detection; astronomical telescopes

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Sylvain Chaty. How to reveal the mysteries of the most obscured high-energy sources of our Galaxy, discovered by INTEGRAL?. THE FIRST GLAST SYMPOSIUM, Feb 2007, Stanford University, United States. pp.232-236, ⟨10.1063/1.2757309⟩. ⟨hal-00175838⟩