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arXiv 2108.12438astro-ph.GA
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星云HeII发射能用超亮X射线源解释吗?

Can nebular HeII emission be explained by ultra-luminous X-ray sources?

Charlotte Simmonds, Daniel Schaerer, Anne Verhamme

摘要:

星系电离光谱的形状是揭示其物理性质和我们理解电离背景辐射的关键因素。一个长期未解决的问题是在许多低金属量恒星形成星系中存在HeII星云发射。这种发射需要能量大于54 eV的电离光子,而正常的恒星星族无法产生足够的光子。为了研究高质量X射线双星和超亮X射线源(HMXB/ULX)是否可以解释观测到的HeII星云发射以及它们的存在如何改变其他发射线,我们计算了包括这些源的星系的光电离模型。我们结合光谱能量分布(SED)的综合恒星星族与受约束的SED的ULXs获得复合光谱与不同数量的X射线光度,参数化的Lx/SFR。有了这些,我们计算光电离模型来预测H和He+的光学复合线的发射线通量,以及OIII,OII,OI和NII的主要金属线。然后将预测结果与大量低金属量星系样本进行比较。我们发现,它是可能的,以重现星云的HeII和其他线的观测与我们的光谱和量的Lx/SFR兼容的意见。我们的工作表明,HMBX/ULX可能是负责所观察到的星云HeII发射。然而,高和低电离线的强度,如HeII和OI,强烈依赖于X射线的贡献和假设的高能量源的SED;后者知之甚少。

英文摘要:

The shape of the ionising spectra of galaxies is a key ingredient to reveal their physical properties and to our understanding of the ionising background radiation. A long-standing unsolved problem is the presence of HeII nebular emission in many low-metallicity star-forming galaxies. This emission requires ionising photons with energy >54 eV, which are not produced in sufficient amounts by normal stellar populations. To examine if high mass X-ray binaries and ultra-luminous X-ray sources (HMXB/ULX) can explain the observed HeII nebular emission and how their presence alters other emission lines, we compute photoionisation models of galaxies including such sources. We combine spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of integrated stellar populations with constrained SEDs of ULXs to obtain composite spectra with varying amounts of X-ray luminosity, parameterised by Lx/SFR. With these we compute photoionisation models to predict the emission line fluxes of the optical recombination lines of H and He+, and the main metal lines of OIII, OII, OI, and NII. The predictions are then compared to a large sample of low-metallicity galaxies. We find that it is possible to reproduce the nebular HeII and other line observations with our spectra and with amounts of Lx/SFR compatible with the observations. Our work suggests that HMBX/ULX could be responsible for the observed nebular HeII emission. However, the strengths of the high and low ionisation lines, such as HeII and OI, depend strongly on the X-ray contribution and on the assumed SEDs of the high energy source(s); the latter are poorly known.

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