High-mass X-ray binaries in a cosmological context

ARTALE, M.C.; PELLIZZA, L.J.; TISSERA, P.B.; MIRABEL, I.F.

Congreso; IAU Symposium 290: Feeding compact objects: Accretion on all scales; 2012

Recent observational and theoretical results suggest that the production rates and luminosities of high-mass X-ray binaries depend on metallicity. To test this prediction, we combine HMXB population synthesis results with numerical simulations of galaxy formation to produce synthetic populations of HMXBs in star-forming galaxies, and compare the model predictions to observations of HMXB populations in nearby and high-redshift galaxies. Our models show a fair agreement with observations only when the HMXB production and luminosities are assumed to depend strongly on metallicity.