Massive X-ray binaries: New developments in the INTEGRAL era

Abstract

The study of massive X-ray binaries provides important observational diagnostics for a number of fundamental astrophysical issues, such as the evolution of massive stars, the stellar winds of massive stars, the formation of compact objects and accretion processes. More than three decades of study have led to a coherent picture of their formation and evolution and some understanding of the physical mechanisms involved. As more and more systems are discovered, this picture grows in complexity. Over the last two years, INTEGRAL has discovered a new population of massive X-ray binaries, characterised by absorbed spectra, which challenges some of our previous assumptions and guarantees that this will be a major subject of research for the near future.