Non-thermal Hard X-ray Emission from Colliding Wind Binary Systems

Colliding-wind massive star binaries are known to produce strong shocks in their wind-wind interaction regions. The interaction region is the scenario of several physical processes, including strong thermal X-ray emission and in several cases particle acceleration up to relativistic energies. The latter process is still poorly understood in these environments, and deserves a particular attention in stellar astrophysics. The investigation of particle acceleration is a critical aspect of high-energy astrophysics, especially at energies above 10 keV where non-thermal emission processes dominate. We discuss the possibility to detect the hard X-ray emission from WR147, a well-known particle accelerator, using Astro-H Hard X-ray Telescope (HXT) and Soft Gamma-Ray Detector (SGD), and to probe the particle acceleration process at work in its colliding-wind region.