Related papers: Exploring the Nature of the Brightest Hyper-lumino…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are interesting systems as they can host intermediate mass black holes. Alternatively, ULXs can represent stellar-mass black holes accreting at super-Eddington rates. Recently spectral curvature or breaks…
Many black-hole sources emit a substantial fraction of their luminosities in blackbody-like spectral components. It is usual to assume that these are produced in regions at least comparable in size to the hole's Schwarzschild radius, so…
A large number of Ultra-Luminous X-ray Sources in external galaxies is now known, but the discussion about their nature is still unsettled: intermediate-mass black holes or stellar-mass black holes accreting above the Eddington limit? A…
Ultraluminous x-ray sources (ULXs) in nearby galaxies shine brighter than any X-ray source in our Galaxy. ULXs are usually modeled as stellar-mass black holes (BHs) accreting at very high rates or intermediate-mass BHs. We present…
We report the discovery of a hyperluminous type 1 quasar (eFEDS J082826.9-013911; eFEDSJ0828-0139) at $z_{\rm spec}$ = 1.622 with a super-Eddington ratio ($\lambda_{\rm Edd}$). We perform the optical spectroscopic observations with…
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…
We studied the optical spectrum of HLX-1 during its latest outburst, using the FORS2 spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope. We detect an Halpha emission line centered at lambda = (6718.9 +/- 0.9) Ang and find that its projected radial…
We have studied a highly variable ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in the Fornax galaxy NGC 1365, with a series of 12 Chandra and XMM-Newton observations between 2002 and 2006. In 2006 April, the source peaked at a luminosity ~ 3 x 10^{40}…
Ultra-luminous quasars ($M_{1450} \leq -29$) provide us with a rare view into the nature of the most massive and most rapidly accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Following the discovery of two of these extreme sources,…
The brightest ultraluminous X-ray source currently known, HLX-1, has been observed to undergo five outburst cycles. The periodicity of these outbursts, and their high inferred maximum accretion rates of $\sim{\rm few}\times 10^{-4} M_\odot…
We describe a new method to estimate the mass of black holes in Ultraluminous X-ray Sources (ULXs). The method is based on the recently discovered ``variability plane'', populated by Galactic stellar-mass black-hole candidates (BHCs) and…
We present observations with XMM-Newton of M33 X-8, the ultraluminous X-ray source (L_{0.5-10 keV} ~ 2x10^39 erg/s) closest to the centre of the galaxy. The best-fit model is similar to the typical model of Galactic black holes in very high…
The closest known ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), M33 X-8, has been recently observed with NuSTAR during its Extragalactic Legacy program, which includes a hard X-ray survey of the M33 galaxy. We present results of two long observations…
ROSAT, and now Chandra, X-ray images allow studies of extranuclear X-ray point sources in galaxies other than our own. X-ray observations of normal galaxies with ROSAT and Chandra have revealed that off-nuclear, compact,…
Gravitational waves from the binary black hole (BH) merger GW150914 may enlighten our understanding of ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs), as BHs>30Msun can reach luminosities>4x10^39 erg s^-1 without exceeding their Eddington limit. It is…
The most luminous X-ray sources in nearby elliptical galaxies are likely black hole low-mass X-ray binaries (BHLMXBs). In the Milky Way, such systems are always transient, and with the exception of GRS1915+105 have burst durations on the…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) exceed the Eddington luminosity for a $\approx 10M_\odot$ black hole. The recent detection of black hole mergers by the gravitational wave detector ALIGO indicates that black holes with masses $> 10…
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…
The advanced capabilities of the Chandra and XMM-Newton observatories mean that, for the first time, the detailed study of the brightest point-like X-ray sources in nearby galaxies outside of the local group is a realistic aim. Here, we…
The X-ray source HLX-1 near the spiral galaxy ESO 243-49 is currently the best intermediate-mass black hole candidate. It has a peak bolometric luminosity of $10^{42}$ erg s$^{-1}$, which implies a mass inflow rate of $\sim10^{-4}$ MSun…