The population-wide properties and demographics of extragalactic X-ray binaries (XRBs) correlate with the star formation rates (SFRs), stellar masses (M_), and environmental factors (such as metallicity, Z) of their host galaxy. Although there is evidence that XRB scaling relations (LX/SFR for high mass XRBs [HMXBs] and LX/M_ for low mass XRBs [LMXBs]) may depend on metallicity and stellar age across large samples of XRB-hosting galaxies, disentangling the effects of metallicity and stellar age from stochastic effects, particularly on subgalactic scales, remains a challenge. We use archival X-ray through IR observations of the nearby galaxy NGC 300 to self-consistently model the broadband spectral energy distribution and examine radial trends in its XRB population. We measure a current ($<$100 Myr) SFR of 0.18±0.08 M_ yr⁻¹ and M_= (2.15+0.26-0.14)×10⁹ M_. Although we measure a metallicity gradient and radially resolved star formation histories that are consistent with the literature, there is a clear excess in the number of X-ray sources below ~10³⁷ erg s⁻¹ that are likely a mix of variable XRBs and additional background AGN. When we compare the subgalactic LX/SFR ratios as a function of Z to the galaxy-integrated LX-SFR-Z relationships from the literature, we find that only the regions hosting the youngest (30 Myr) HMXBs agree with predictions, hinting at time evolution of the LX-SFR-Z relationship.
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Binder et al. (2024) studied this question.
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