arXiv · 2509.14555
Stratified wind from a super-Eddington X-ray binary is slower than expected
Abstract
Accretion discs in strong gravity ubiquitously produce winds, seen as blueshifted absorption lines in the X-ray band of both stellar mass X-ray binaries (black holes and neutron stars), and supermassive black holes. Some of the most powerful winds (termed Eddington winds) are expected to arise from systems where radiation pressure is sufficient to unbind material from the inner disc ($L\gtrsim L_{\rm Edd}$). These winds should be extremely fast and carry a large amount of kinetic power, which, when associated with supermassive black holes, would make them a prime contender for the feedback mechanism linking the growth of those black holes with their host galaxies. Here we show the XRISM Resolve spectrum of the Galactic neutron star X-ray binary, GX 13+1, which reveals one of the densest winds ever seen in absorption lines. This Compton-thick wind significantly attenuates the flux, making it appear faint, although it is intrinsically more luminous than usual ($L\gtrsim L_{\rm Edd}$). However, the wind is extremely slow, more consistent with the predictions of thermal-radiative winds launched by X-ray irradiation of the outer disc, than with the expected Eddington wind driven by radiation pressure from the inner disc. This puts new constraints on the origin of winds from bright accretion flows in binaries, but also highlights the very different origin required for the ultrafast ($v\sim 0.3c$) winds seen in recent Resolve observations of a supermassive black hole at similarly high Eddington ratio.
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XRISM collaboration, Marc Audard, Hisamitsu Awaki, Ralf Ballhausen, Aya Bamba, Ehud Behar, Rozenn Boissay-Malaquin, Laura Brenneman, Gregory V. Brown, Lia Corrales, Elisa Costantini, Renata Cumbee, Maria Diaz Trigo, Chris Done, Tadayasu Dotani, Ken Ebisawa, Megan Eckart, Dominique Eckert, Teruaki Enoto, Satoshi Eguchi, Yuichiro Ezoe, Adam Foster, Ryuichi Fujimoto, Yutaka Fujita, Yasushi Fukazawa, Kotaro Fukushima, Akihiro Furuzawa, Luigi Gallo, Javier A. Garcia, Liyi Gu, Matteo Guainazzi, Kouichi Hagino, Kenji Hamaguchi, Isamu Hatsukade, Katsuhiro Hayashi, Takayuki Hayashi, Natalie Hell, Edmund Hodges-Kluck, Ann Hornschemeier, Yuto Ichinohe, Manabu Ishida, Kumi Ishikawa, Yoshitaka Ishisaki, Jelle Kaastra, Timothy Kallman, Erin Kara, Satoru Katsuda, Yoshiaki Kanemaru, Richard Kelley, Caroline Kilbourne, Shunji Kitamoto, Shogo Kobayashi, Takayoshi Kohmura, Aya Kubota, Maurice Leutenegger, Michael Loewenstein, Yoshitomo Maeda, Maxim Markevitch, Hironori Matsumoto, Kyoko Matsushita, Dan McCammon, Brian McNamara, Francois Mernier, Eric D. Miller, Jon M. Miller, Ikuyuki Mitsuishi, Misaki Mizumoto, Tsunefumi Mizuno, Koji Mori, Koji Mukai, Hiroshi Murakami, Richard Mushotzky, Hiroshi Nakajima, Kazuhiro Nakazawa, Jan-Uwe Ness, Kumiko Nobukawa, Masayoshi Nobukawa, Hirofumi Noda, Hirokazu Odaka, Shoji Ogawa, Anna Ogorzalek, Takashi Okajima, Naomi Ota, Stephane Paltani, Robert Petre, Paul Plucinsky, Frederick Scott Porter, Katja Pottschmidt, Kosuke Sato, Toshiki Sato, Makoto Sawada, Hiromi Seta, Megumi Shidatsu, Aurora Simionescu, Randall Smith, Hiromasa Suzuki, Andrew Szymkowiak, Hiromitsu Takahashi, Mai Takeo, Toru Tamagawa. 2025-09-18. Stratified wind from a super-Eddington X-ray binary is slower than expected. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09495-w
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