Multi-wavelength Studies of Galactic Matter Cycle and Chemical Evolution
Final Report Abstract
The main observable components of galaxies are stars, interstellar gas and clouds, dust, cosmic rays, photons, and electromagnetic fields. At the end of their lives, stars become a compact object, i.e., a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole, depending on their initial mass and their evolution. Since stars are often born in multiple systems, if a compact object has a companion and accretes matter from it, the system will emit X-ray emission. In addition, massive stars or some accreting white dwarfs explode at the end of their evolution in a supernova explosion, which will cause strong shock waves. These shock waves will then create objects called supernova remnants (SNRs), which are also bright X-ray sources. Before they die in a powerful explosion, stars change their environment through their radiation and, in particular, through their stellar winds, which will also cause interstellar shocks. These shocks will heat, ionise, and compress the ambient interstellar medium (ISM) and form new interstellar structures. Shells of swept-up gas will evolve into dense clouds and become sites of new star formation. We perform observations of galaxies and galactic X-ray sources and study their multi-wavelength emission in order to improve our understanding of the galactic matter cycle and the evolution of galaxies. We have carried out observational studies of X-ray sources in galaxies in our local neighbourhood: the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds or the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy, which are satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, as well as the Andromeda galaxy M 31, which is the nearest spiral galaxy similar to our Galaxy. We studied the properties of different types of X- ray sources, their multi-wavelength counterparts, and the entire population of X-ray sources in these galaxies. We confirm the population of X-ray emitting binaries and, especially, find faint low-mass systems in the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy. These observational results are crucial for the modelling of the synthesis and evolution of binary systems. We also study interstellar shocks in SNRs and superbubbles and their effect on the ambient medium. We study the emission and properties of SNRs, the physics of the interstellar shocks, the properties of the shocked plasma and the mixing with colder gas, the acceleration of particles in the strong shock fronts, and how the shocks interact with the colder phases of the ISM. These studies have implications on many fields of Astrophysics, including stellar evolution, physics of the ISM, and the origin and propagation of Galactic cosmic rays. In addition, we have started to investigate which effect SNR shocks can have on the star-formation process. We have successfully applied for observations for the first studies and obtained data for the promising targets. Since this is a new project, we are still in the process of investigating the possible analysis methods.
Publications
- 2017: Statistical Analysis of Supernova Remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 230, 2
Bozzetto, L. M., Filipović , M. D., Vukotić , B., Pavlović, M. Z., Urošević, D., Kavanagh, P. J., Arbutina, B., Maggi, P., Sasaki, M., Haberl, F., Crawford, E. J., Roper, Q., Grieve, K., Points, S. D.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/aa653c) - 2018: Deep XMM-Newton observations of the northern disc of M31. I. Source catalogue, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 620, 28
Sasaki, M., Haberl, F., Henze, M., Saeedi, S., Williams, B. F., Plucinsky, P. P., Hatzidimitriou, D., Karampelas, A., Sokolovsky, K. V., Breitschwerdt, D., de Avillez, M. A., Filipovic, M. D., Galvin, T., Kavanagh, P. J., Long, K. S.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201833588) - 2018: Infrared and X-ray study of the Galactic SNR G15.9+0.2, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 479, 3033
Sasaki, M., Makela, M. M., Klochkov, D., Santangelo, A., Suleimanov, V.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty1596) - 2018: Suzaku Observations of the Monogem Ring and the Origin of the Gemini Hα Ring, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 477, 4414
Knies, J. R., Sasaki, M., Plucinsky, P. P.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty915) - 2018: XMM-Newton study of the super-soft symbiotic system Draco C1, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 473, 440
Saeedi, S., Sasaki, M., Ducci, L.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx2354) - 2019: The supernova remnant population of the Small Magellanic Cloud, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 631, 127
Maggi, P., Filipović , M. D., Vukotić, B., Ballet, J., Haberl, F., Maitra, C., Kavanagh, P., Sasaki, M., Stupar, M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201936583)
