Related papers: X-ray observations of ultraluminous X-ray sources
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are a class of accreting compact objects with X-ray luminosities above 10$^{39}$ erg s$^{-1}$. The average number of ULXs per galaxy is still not well constrained, especially given the uncertainty on the…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) were an enigma since their discovery. ASCA showed that they are accreting black holes (BHs) with unknown mass, while Chandra & XMM data shows that the many of the lower luminosity ULXs can be explained by…
Observations of high-redshift quasars frequently promote suggestions of large black hole masses, whose presence so early in cosmic time is not easily explicable. I consider the parallel with ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) -- now known…
We present the results from the high resolution Chandra observation of the Cartwheel galaxy. Many individual sources are resolved in the image, mostly associated with the outer ring. All detected sources have a very high X-ray luminosity…
I suggest that there are two classes of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs), corresponding to super-Eddington mass inflow in two situations: (a) thermal-timescale mass transfer in high-mass X-ray binaries, and (b) long-lasting transient…
The nature of the ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in the nearby galaxies is a matter of debates. One of the popular hypothesis associates them with accretion at a sub-Eddington rate on to intermediate mass black holes. Another…
The study of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) has changed dramatically over the last decade. In this review we first describe the most important observations of ULXs in various wavebands, and across multiple scales in space and time. We…
Various arguments strongly suggest that the population of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs: apparent X-ray luminosity > Eddington limit for 10 Msun ~10^39 erg/s) in nearby galaxies are mostly stellar-mass X-ray binaries in unusual…
The luminosity range at and just below the 10^39 erg/s cut-off for defining ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) is a little-explored regime. It none-the-less hosts a large number of X-ray sources, and has great potential for improving our…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are non-nuclear point-like objects observed with extremely high X-ray luminosity that exceeds the Eddington limit of a $\rm10\,M_\odot$ black hole. A fraction of ULXs has been confirmed to contain neutron…
The origin and nature of Ultra-Luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) is a contentious and controversial topic. There are ongoing debates about the masses of the objects responsible, their sources of mass for accretion, and their relation to stellar…
We report the discovery of a new ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) associated with a globular cluster in the elliptical galaxy NGC 4649. The X-ray source was initially detected with a luminosity below 5 x 10^38 erg/s, but in subsequent…
Ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) have been puzzling us with a debate whether they consist of an intermediate mass black hole or super-Eddington accretion by a stellar mass black hole. Here we suggest that in the presence of large scale…
We investigate models for the class of ultraluminous non-nuclear X-ray sources (ULXs) seen in a number of galaxies and probably associated with star-forming regions. Models where the X-ray emission is assumed to be isotropic run into…
We examined X-ray spectral and timing properties of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in nearby galaxies in XMM-Newton archival data. There appear to be three distinct classes of spectra. One class shows emission from hot, diffuse plasma.…
We report the serendipitous discovery of several unresolved X-ray sources lying in the prominent spiral arms of the galaxy KUG 0214-057 in XMM-Newton observations. The location of these X-ray sources strongly suggests that at least three,…
We examine the possibility that Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) represent the extreme end of the black hole X-ray binary (XRB) population. Based on their X-ray properties, we suggest that ULXs are persistently in a high/hard spectral…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are a class of accreting compact objects with X-ray luminosities above 1e39 erg/s. The ULX population counts several hundreds objects but only a minor fraction is well studied. Here we present a detailed…
NGC 925 ULX-1 and ULX-2 are two ultraluminous X-ray sources in the galaxy NGC 925, at a distance of 8.5 Mpc. For the first time, we analyzed high quality, simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR data of both sources. Although at a first glance…
We report the discovery of a new candidate ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in the nearby edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 891. The source, which has an absorbed flux of F_X ~ 10^-12 erg/s/cm^2 (corresponding to L_X > 10^40 erg/s at 9 Mpc), must…