Chandra Observations of the Nucleus of M33
Abstract
The nearby galaxy M33 hosts the most luminous steady X-ray source in the Local Group. The high spatial resolution of Chandra allows us to confirm that this ultra-luminous X-ray source is within the nucleus and rule out at the 4.6 sigma level a previously proposed possible counterpart located 1" away. The X-ray spectrum is well fitted by a disc blackbody with kT=1.18+-0.02 keV and R cos(theta)^(0.5}=57+-3 km, consistent with earlier results from ASCA and BeppoSAX. The source flux is steady between 1 and 1e4 s (<3% rms variability, 0.5-10 keV) with a 0.5-10 keV luminosity of 1.5e39 erg/s. The X-ray properties and an association with a radio source are reminiscent of the galactic microquasar GRS 1915+105.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0207069,
title = {Chandra Observations of the Nucleus of M33},
author = {Guillaume Dubus and Robert E. Rutledge},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0207069},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS