Related papers: ULX behaviour: the ultraluminous state, winds & in…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are bright extragalactic sources with X-ray luminosities above 10^39 erg/s powered by accretion onto compact objects. According to the first studies performed with XMM-Newton ULXs seemed to be excellent…
The origin of 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 is mysterious. The most popular models for the ULXs…
Although we are nearing a consensus that most ULXs are stellar-mass black holes in a super-Eddington state, little is yet established of the physics of this accretion mode. Here, we use a combined X-ray spectral and timing analysis of a…
Ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are the most extreme members of the X-ray binary population, exhibiting X-ray luminosities that can surpass the 10^39 erg/s threshold (by orders of magnitude). They are mainly seen in external galaxies…
The luminosities of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) require an exotic solution with either super-critical accretion modes onto stellar mass black holes or sub-critical accretion onto intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) being invoked.…
We review observations of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). X-ray spectroscopic and timing studies of ULXs suggest a new accretion state distinct from those seen in Galactic stellar-mass black hole binaries. The detection of coherent…
A sub-set of the brightest ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs), with X-ray luminosities well above $10^{40}$ erg s$^{-1}$, typically have energy spectra which can be well described as hard power-laws, and short-term variability in excess of…
Ultra-/hyper-luminous X-ray sources (ULX/HLX) could be interesting laboratories to improve our understanding of the supermassive black hole growth through super-Eddington accretion episodes and successive mergers of lighter holes. ULXs are…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are extreme X-ray binaries shining above 10^39 erg/s, in most cases as a consequence of super-Eddington accretion onto neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes accreting above their Eddington limit. This…
Evidence is mounting that some Ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) may contain accreting intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). We review the current observational evidence for IMBH-ULXs. While low-luminosity ULXs with L_X <~ 10^39.5 erg/s…
The origin of 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 is mysterious. The most popular models for the ULXs…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) represent the closest and most accessible laboratories to study sustained super-Eddington accretion onto compact objects. Over the past decade, the discoveries of coherent pulsations in a few ULXs has…
Most Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are thought to be powered by super-Eddington accretion onto stellar-mass compact objects. Accretors in this extreme regime are naturally expected to ionise copious amounts of plasma in their vicinity…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) with luminosities lying between ~3x10^{39} - 2x10^{40} erg/s represent a contentious sample of objects as their brightness, together with a lack of unambiguous mass estimates for the vast majority of the…
The extreme extragalactic sources known as Ultraluminous X-ray Sources (ULX) represent a unique testing environment for compact objects population studies and the accretion process. Their nature has long been disputed. Their luminosity,…
We summarize indirect empirical arguments used for estimating black hole (BH) masses in ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). The interpretation of the X-ray data is still too model-dependent to provide tight constraints, but masses <~ 100…
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…
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…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are mainly powered by accretion in neutron stars or stellar-mass black holes. Accreting at rates exceeding the Eddington limit by factors of a few up to hundreds, radiation pressure is expected to inflate…
The nature of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) -- off-nuclear extra-galactic sources with luminosity, assumed isotropic, $\gtrsim 10^{39}$ erg s$^{-1}$ -- is still debated. One possibility is that ULXs are stellar black holes accreting…