Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources
Abstract
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) were identified as a separate class of objects in 2000 based on data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. These are unique objects: their X-ray luminosities exceed the Eddington limit for a typical stellar-mass black hole. For a long time, the nature of ULXs remained unclear. However, the gradual accumulation of data, new results of X-ray and optical spectroscopy, and the study of the structure and energy of nebulae surrounding ULXs led to the understanding that most of the ultraluminous X-ray sources must be supercritical accretion disks like SS 433. The discovery of neutron stars in a number of objects only increased the confidence of the scientific community in the conclusions obtained, since the presence of neutron stars in such systems clearly indicates a supercritical accretion regime. In this review, we systematize the main facts about the observational manifestations of ULXs and SS 433 in the X-ray and optical ranges and discuss their explanation from the point of view of the supercritical accretion theory.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2105.10537,
title = {Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources},
author = {S. N. Fabrika and K. E. Atapin and A. S. Vinokurov and O. N. Sholukhova},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.10537},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
32 pages, 21 figures, 1 table