PoS - Proceedings of Science
Volume 401 - High Energy Astrophysics in Southern Africa 2021 (HEASA2021) - Session: X-ray Binaries
Considering the importance of gamma-gamma absorption in gamma-ray binaries
B. van Soelen* and D. du Plooy
Full text: pdf
Pre-published on: December 09, 2021
Published on: May 30, 2022
Abstract
Gamma-ray binaries are a rare subclass of high mass binary systems, where the non-thermal emission peaks in the gamma-ray regime. Two scenarios have been proposed to explain the production of the emission; in the pulsar wind scenario the compact object is proposed to be a rapidly rotating pulsar, and the emission originates from particle acceleration that occurs at the shock that forms between the pulsar and stellar wind; in the microquasar scenario emission originates from a relativistic jet. In the pulsar wind scenario, the particle acceleration is normally assumed to occur at the apex of the shock, but hydrodynamic simulations have shown that a second shock could occur due to Coriolis forces. Since gamma-gamma absorption will strongly attenuate TeV emission originating from the apex of the shock, this may imply that it originates from this second shock region. We have undertaken a full calculation of the gamma-gamma optical depth around the gamma-ray binary LS 5039, to investigate whether gamma-gamma absorption may introduce observable features that could be used to constrain the location of the gamma-ray production.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22323/1.401.0028
How to cite

Metadata are provided both in "article" format (very similar to INSPIRE) as this helps creating very compact bibliographies which can be beneficial to authors and readers, and in "proceeding" format which is more detailed and complete.

Open Access
Creative Commons LicenseCopyright owned by the author(s) under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.