Related papers: Comparing Spectral Models for ULXs with NGC 4517 U…
A model for the inner regions of accretion flows is presented where, due to disc instabilities, cold and dense material is clumped into deep sheets or rings. Surrounding these density enhancements is hot, tenuous gas where coronal…
We report the detection of flaring events in NGC 4395 ULX1, a nearby ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), for the first time, using recent XMM-NEWTON observations. The flaring episodes are spectrally harder than the steady emission intervals,…
AGN exhibit complex hard X-ray spectra. Our current understanding is that the emission is dominated by inverse Compton processes which take place in the corona above the accretion disk, and that absorption and reflection in a distant…
We discuss the effects of a comptonizing corona on the appearance of the reflection components, and in particular of the reflection hump, in the X-rays spectra of accreting black holes. Indeed, in the framework of a thermal corona model, we…
We studied five XMM-Newton observations of the neutron-star binary 4U 1728$-$34 covering the hard, intermediate and soft spectral states. By jointly fitting the spectra with several reflection models, we obtained an inclination angle of…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources represent extreme super-Eddington accretion regimes, and a subset is now known to host highly magnetized neutron stars. However, direct observational probes of their surface magnetic fields remain scarce. In this…
Although attempts have been made to constrain the stellar types of optical counterparts to ULXs, the detection of optical variability instead suggests that they may be dominated by reprocessed emission from X-rays which irradiate the outer…
A large fraction of accreting black hole and neutron stars systems present clear evidence of the reprocessing of X-rays in the atmosphere of an optically-thick accretion disk. The main hallmarks of X-ray reflection include fluorescent…
We report on results from a one-year soft X-ray observing campaign of the ultraluminous X-ray pulsar NGC 300 ULX-1 by the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) during 2018--2019. Our analysis also made use of data from…
The X-ray spectra of the most extreme ultra-luminous X-ray sources -- those with L > 1 E+40 erg/s -- remain something of a mystery. Spectral roll-over in the 5-10 keV band was originally detected in in the deepest XMM-Newton observations of…
We consider the Comptonisation of the photons that make up the relativistically blurred reflection that is commonly detected from the accretion discs of AGN by the coronae of energetic particles believed to give rise to the powerful X-ray…
In recent work with high-resolution grating spectrometers (RGS) aboard XMM-Newton Pinto et al. (2016) have discovered that two bright and archetypal ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) have strong relativistic winds in agreement with…
We present the results of optical panoramic and long-slit spectroscopy of the nebula MF16 associated with the Ultraluminous X-ray Source NGC6946 ULX-1. More than 20 new emission lines are identified in the spectra. Using characteristic line…
Transient ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) provide an important link bridging transient low-mass X-ray binaries and ULXs. Here we report the first discovery of both a canonical sub-Eddington outburst and an ultraluminous super-Eddington…
By comparing the ratio of flux densities in the X-ray and UV wavebands by way of the spectral optical-X-Ray index, $\alpha_{ox}$, we explore the relation between the emissions in the respective wavebands for a number of ULXs with known…
Most of the spectra of neutron star low mass X-ray binaries (NS LMXBs), being them persistent or transient, are characterized by the presence of a strong thermal Comptonization bump, thought to originate in the transition layer (TL) between…
We present spectroscopic X-ray data of two candidate ultra-compact X-ray binaries: 4U~0614+091 and 4U~1543$-$624. We confirm the presence of a broad O VIII Ly$\alpha$ reflection line (at $\approx18\ \AA$) using {\it XMM-Newton} and {\it…
(Abridged) Soft and hard X-ray excesses, compared to the continuum power-law shape between ~2-10 keV, are common features observed in the spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and are associated with the accretion disc-corona system…
A phase-resolved analysis on the X-ray spectrum of Ultra-Luminous X-ray Pulsar (ULXP) NGC 300 ULX-1 is performed with data taken with XMM-Newton and NuSTAR on 2016 December 16th. In addition to the classical phase-restricting analysis, a…
We present an analysis of the 3-79 keV NuSTAR spectrum of the low-luminosity active galactic nucleus NGC 7213. In agreement with past observations, we find a lower limit to the high-energy cut-off of Ec > 140 keV, no evidence for a…