Navigation

Abstracts by session

Print this page 







Name:Vallia Antoniou


Institution:Iowa State University


Country:USA




Title:Tracing the young accreting binary population of the Magellanic Clouds using their star-formation history




Abstract:In this work, we study the properties of the overall accreting binary population of the Magellanic Clouds and the connection between star-formation (SF) activity and X-ray binary (XRB) formation and evolution. Understanding of the populations of compact objects and their connection with SF will allow us to investigate channels of XRB formation in a variety of environments and therefore help in studies of the X-ray source populations of star-forming galaxies outside our Local Group, and even enable their use as a SF diagnostic. By using surveys carried out with space-based X-ray and infrared observatories and ground-based telescopes, we address the demographics of the most common type of young XRBs in the two nearest star-forming galaxies. Our program makes use of multiwavelength data sets in order to provide better understanding 
of the physical parameters which influence the XRB formation rate and evolution, such as the metallicity and the age of the parent stellar populations. At the same time, this program demonstrates in the most explicit way, that recent SF activity can be used as a robust indicator of young XRB formation: in the Small Magellanic Cloud (Z~1/5Zo) high-mass XRBs are observed in regions with SF rate bursts ~25-60 Myr ago, while for the Large Magellanic Cloud (Z~1/3Zo) these populations are concentrated in regions as young as ~10-50 Myr. The similarity of this age with the age of maximum occurrence of the Be phenomenon
 (~40 Myr) indicates that the presence of a circumstellar decretion disk plays a significant role in the number of observed XRBs in the 10-100 Myr age range.








            

            
            

              

              ^  Top