Related papers: Variability in Ultra-luminous X-ray Sources
To test the idea that ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in external galaxies represent a class of accreting intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), we have undertaken a program to identify ULXs and a lower luminosity X-ray comparison sample…
I briefly review much of the X-ray and optical data on the nature of the ULXs in nearby galaxies. I present new results on radio emission, finding that the radio is usually rather luminous and extended. I review the X-ray data on timing and…
The X-ray spectral and timing properties of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) have many similarities with the very high state of stellar-mass black holes (power-law dominated, at accretion rates greater than the Eddington rate). On the…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are a population of extragalactic objects whose luminosity exceeds the Eddington limit for a 10 Msun black hole (BH). Their properties have been widely interpreted in terms of accreting stellar-mass or…
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 present the analysis of the X-ray variability and spectral timing properties of the ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) NGC 5408 X-1, one of the most variable ULXs known so far. The variability properties are used as a diagnostic of the…
The black hole mass and accretion rate in Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in external galaxies, whose X-ray luminosities exceed those of the brightest black holes in our Galaxy by hundreds and thousands of times$^{1,2}$, is an unsolved…
The notion of source states characterizing the X-ray emission from black hole binaries has revealed to be a very useful tool to disentangle the complex spectral and aperiodic phenomenology displayed by those classes of accreting objects. We…
Recent evidence - in particular the hard X-ray spectra obtained by NuSTAR, and the large amplitude hard X-ray variability observed when ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) show soft spectra - reveals that common ULX behaviour is inconsistent…
The ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) population is known to contain neutron stars, but the relative number of these compared to black hole primaries is unknown. Assuming classical super-critical accretion and resultant geometrical beaming,…
We present results from a study of short term variability in 19 archival observations by XMM-Newton of 16 Ultraluminous X-ray Sources (ULXs). Eight observations (six sources) showed intrinsic variability with power spectra in the form of…
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…
Ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are sources observed to exceed the Eddington limit of a stellar-mass black hole (BH). A fraction of ULX sources show X-ray pulses which are evidence for accreting neutron stars (NSs). Theoretical studies…
Ultra-Luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are accreting black holes for which their X-ray properties have been seen to be different to the case of stellar-mass black hole binaries. For most of the cases their intrinsic energy spectra are well…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) have been objects of great interest for the past few decades due to their unusually high luminosities and spectral properties. A few of these sources exhibit super-Eddington luminosities assuming them to…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) represent an extreme class of accreting compact objects: from the identification of some of the accretors as neutron stars to the detection of powerful winds travelling at 0.1-0.2 c, the increasing…
Flux variability is a remarkable property of black hole (BH) accreting systems, and a powerful tool to investigate the multi-scale structure of the accretion flow. The X-ray band is where some of the most rapid variations occur, pointing to…
We consider ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) where the accretor is a neutron star rather than a black hole. We show that the recently-discovered example (M82 X-2) fits naturally into the simple picture of ULXs as beamed X-ray sources fed…
Little is presently known about the nature of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX). Different hypotheses have been proposed to explain their properties: intermediate-mass BHs, Kerr BHs, young SNR, or background AGN. Some of the current…
We investigated the relationship between the X-ray variability amplitude and X-ray luminosity for a sample of 14 bright Ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) with XMM-Newton/EPIC data, and compare it with the well established similar…