The Galactic high mass X-ray binary population with Fermi-LAT

Abstract

ABSTRACT We search for γ-ray emission from 114 Galactic high-mass X-ray binaries, including four well studied catalogued sources, in 12.5 yr of Fermi-LAT data in conjunction with the 10-yr point source catalogue. Where a γ-ray excess appears to be spatially coincident with an X-ray binary, further investigation is performed to ascertain whether this excess is the product of physical processes within the binary system itself. We identify γ-ray excesses coincident with 20 high-mass X-ray binaries where there is little or no prior evidence for γ-ray emission. However, we find that many of these are false positives caused by source confusion or the γ-ray background. None the less, tentative but promising indicators of γ-ray emission are identified for several new systems, notably including 1A 0535+262, RX J2030.5+4751, and SAX J1324.4−6200.