Related papers: The missing link: a low mass X-ray binary in M31 s…
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 a study of the variability of X-ray sources in the central 30' of the nearby Andromeda Galaxy (M31) based on XMM Performance Verification observations. Two observations of this field, with a total exposure time of…
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…
We have examined a probable soft X-ray transient source in the M31 bulge at R.A.=0:42:41.814 +/- 0.08", Dec. = 41:16:35.86 +/- 0.07". On the three occasions we observed the source, its spectrum was soft (kT_{in} ~1 keV). The brightest…
The deepest X-ray images of M31, obtained with XMM-Newton, are examined in this paper to derive spectral and statistical properties of the population of the softest X-ray sources. Classifying supersoft X-ray sources (SSS) with criteria…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are some of the most enigmatic X-ray bright sources known to date. It is generally accepted that they cannot host black holes as large as those associated with active galaxies, but they appear to be…
We report the X-ray data analysis of two transient ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs, hereafter X1 and X2) located in the nearby galaxy NGC 7090. While they were not detected in the 2004 XMM-Newton and 2005 Chandra observations, their…
We report on a multi-wavelength study of the recently discovered X-ray transient XMMU J004243.6+412519 in M31, based on data collected with Swift and the 1.8-m Copernico Telescope at Cima Ekar in Asiago (Italy) between 2012 February and…
In the last few years multiwavelength observations have boosted our understanding of Ultraluminous X-ray Sources (ULXs). Yet, the most fundamental questions on ULXs still remain to be definitively answered: do they contain stellar or…
We present an X-ray analysis of three different XMM-Newton observations together with simultaneous NICER and NuSTAR observations of the ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 4190 ULX-1. Our goal is to constrain the structure of the accretion disk…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are X-ray binary systems containing an accreting neutron star (NS) or black hole emitting at luminosities above the Eddington limit of a $10M_{\odot}$ black hole. Approximately 1900 (either confirmed or…
We report on a new XMM-Newton observation of NGC 247 from December 2009. The galaxy contains a supersoft, ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) whose spectrum consists of a thermal component with a temperature about 0.1 keV and a power-law tail…
We investigate the spatial coincidence of ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) with young massive stellar clusters. In particular we perform astrometry on Chandra and HST data of two ULXs that are possibly associated with such clusters. To…
With an inferred bolometric luminosity exceeding 10^42 erg/s, HLX-1 in ESO 243-49 is the most luminous of ultraluminous X-ray sources and provides one of the strongest cases for the existence of intermediate mass black holes. We obtain good…
Some ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are surrounded by collisionally ionized bubbles, larger and more energetic than supernova remnants: they are evidence of the powerful outflows associated with super-Eddington X-ray sources. We…
We study spectral variability of 11 ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX) using archived XMM-Newton and Chandra observations. We use three models to describe the observed spectra: a power-law, a multi-colour disc (MCD) and a combination of…
We present an analysis of 13 of the best quality EPIC ULX datasets. We utilise the high signal-to-noise in these ULX spectra to investigate the best descriptions of their spectral shape in the 0.3-10 keV range. Simple models of an absorbed…
We report the results of Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of a new outburst of an ultra-luminous X-ray source in M101. During a Chandra monitoring observation of M101, M101 ULX-1 was found to be in outburst in 2004 December, the second…
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 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…