A research team has shed new night on the massive star and its neutron star companion, which are thought to be at the core of the gamma-ray binary system LS 5039.
Including former graduate student Hiroki Yoneda, Senior Scientist Kazuo Makishima and Principal Investigator Tadayuki Takahashi at the Kavli IMPU, the team also suggest that the particle acceleration process known to occur within LS 5039 is caused by interactions between the dense stellar winds of its primary massive star, and ultra-strong magnetic fields of the rotating magnetar.
Gamma-ray binaries are a system of massive stars and compact stars. They were discovered only recently, in 2004, when observations of very-high-energy gamma-rays in the teraelectronvolt (TeV) band from large enough regions of the sky became possible. When viewed with visible light, gamma-ray binaries appear as bright bluish-white stars, and are indistinguishable from any other binary system hosting a massive star.
However, when observed with X-rays and gamma-rays, their properties are dramatically different from those of other binaries. In these energy bands, ordinary binary systems are completely invisible, but gamma-ray binaries produce intense non-thermal emission, and their intensity appears to increase and decrease according to their orbital periods of several days to several years.
Once the gamma-ray binaries were established as a new astrophysical class, it was quickly recognized that an extremely efficient acceleration mechanism should operate in them. While the acceleration of TeV particles requires tens of years in supernova remnants, which are renowned cosmic accelerators, gamma-ray binaries boost electron energy beyond 1 TeV in just tens of seconds. Gamma-ray binaries can thus be considered one of the most efficient particle accelerators in the Universe.
In addition, some gamma-ray binaries are known to emit strong gamma-rays with energies of several megaelectron volts (MeV). Gamma-rays in this band are currently difficult to observe; they were detected from only around 30 celestial bodies in the whole sky. But the fact that such binaries emit strong radiation even in this energy band greatly adds to the mystery surrounding them, and indicates an extremely effective particle acceleration process going on within them.
Story Source: Materials provided by Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.