Clarifying the population of HMXBs in the Small Magellanic Cloud. (arXiv:1811.10933v1 [astro-ph.HE])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Maravelias_G/0/1/0/all/0/1">Grigoris Maravelias</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Zezas_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">Andreas Zezas</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Antoniou_V/0/1/0/all/0/1">Vallia Antoniou</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Hatzidimitriou_D/0/1/0/all/0/1">Despina Hatzidimitriou</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Haberl_F/0/1/0/all/0/1">Frank Haberl</a>
Almost all confirmed optical counterparts of HMXBs in the SMC are OB stars
with equatorial decretion disks (OBe). These sources emit strongly in Balmer
lines and standout when imaged through narrow-band H{alpha} imaging. The lack
of secure counterparts for a significant fraction of the HMXBs motivated us to
search for more. Using the catalogs for OB/OBe stars (Maravelias et al. 2017)
and for HMXBs (Haberl & Sturm 2016) we detect 70 optical counterparts (out of
104 covered by our survey). We provide the first identification of the optical
counterpart to the source XTEJ0050-731. We verify that 17 previously uncertain
optical counterparts are indeed the proper matches. Regarding 52 confirmed
HMXBs (known optical counterparts with H{alpha} emission), we detect 39 as OBe
and another 13 as OB stars. This allows a direct estimation of the fraction of
active OBe stars in HMXBs that show H{alpha} emission at a given epoch to be
at least $sim75%$ of their total HMXB population.
Almost all confirmed optical counterparts of HMXBs in the SMC are OB stars
with equatorial decretion disks (OBe). These sources emit strongly in Balmer
lines and standout when imaged through narrow-band H{alpha} imaging. The lack
of secure counterparts for a significant fraction of the HMXBs motivated us to
search for more. Using the catalogs for OB/OBe stars (Maravelias et al. 2017)
and for HMXBs (Haberl & Sturm 2016) we detect 70 optical counterparts (out of
104 covered by our survey). We provide the first identification of the optical
counterpart to the source XTEJ0050-731. We verify that 17 previously uncertain
optical counterparts are indeed the proper matches. Regarding 52 confirmed
HMXBs (known optical counterparts with H{alpha} emission), we detect 39 as OBe
and another 13 as OB stars. This allows a direct estimation of the fraction of
active OBe stars in HMXBs that show H{alpha} emission at a given epoch to be
at least $sim75%$ of their total HMXB population.
http://arxiv.org/icons/sfx.gif
