Research Interests

Stellar winds in HMXBs

A High-Mass X-ray Binary (HMXB) is a binary star system consisting of a massive star (>10M⊙, usually O/B star) dominating the emission of optical light and a X-ray emitting compact object being a neutron star or a black hole. In those systems, the massive star looses large amounts of its mass via radiation-driven mass loss or ”stellar wind” (see Fig. 1). Some of the wind is captured by the compact object. As it is accreted onto the compact object, it produces X-rays. HMXBs are building blocks of star clusters and galaxies as they significantly influence the surrounding medium via gas outflow and ionising radiation. At the end of their life, massive stars will explode as supernovae or gamma ray bursts and enrich the interstellar medium with heavy elements.

Fig. 1: Simulation of the accreting neutron star in the Vela X-1 HMXB. The colour gradient accounts for varying density.
Credits: John M. Blondin

Fig. 2: Artist's view of XRISM.
Credits: JAXA

X-ray astronomy

My research focuses on studying the strong X-ray radiation from accreting compact objects to understand accretion phenomena. I have expertise with NuSTAR, XMM-Newton and also in high-resolution spectroscopy with the recently launched XRISM. I am an active member of the NewAthena Science Community in the Compact Objects and Transient and Multi-Messenger working groups.