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Related papers: The Lense-Thirring timing-accretion plane for ULXs

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The discovery of pulsations in several Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) demonstrated that a fraction of ULXs are powered by super-Eddington accretion onto neutron stars (NSs). This opened the debate as to what is the NS to black hole (BH)…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-05-26 Andrés Gúrpide , Olivier Godet , Filippos Koliopanos , Natalie Webb , Jean-François Olive

We investigate the nature of the ULX M81 X-6, which has been suggested to harbour a neutron star (NS), by studying its long-term X-ray spectral and temporal evolution, using the rich set of available archival data from XMM-Newton, Chandra,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-01-25 Roberta Amato , Andres Gúrpide , Natalie A. Webb , Olivier Godet , Matthew J. Middleton

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…

The classical limit on the accretion luminosity of a neutron star is given by the Eddington luminosity. The advanced models of accretion onto magnetized neutron stars account for the appearance of magnetically confined accretion columns and…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-03-14 Alexander A. Mushtukov , Sergey S. Tsygankov , Valery F. Suleimanov , Juri Poutanen

Ultraluminous X-ray pulsars (ULXPs) serve as unique astrophysical laboratories, offering critical insights into accretion physics under extreme conditions, such as strong magnetic fields and super-Eddington accretion rates. Additionally,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-02-05 Hong-Bo Li , Shi-Jie Gao , Xiang-Dong Li , Ren-Xin Xu

Possible manifestations of accreting magnetars are discussed. It is shown that the four ultra-luminous X-ray pulsars can be understood in the accreting low magnetic field magnetar scenario. The NGC300 ULX1 pulsar may have a higher dipole…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-11-14 H. Tong , W. Wang

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-02-02 Ciro Pinto , Dominic J. Walton

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2017-08-30 Philip Kaaret , Hua Feng , Timothy P. Roberts

It has long been recognised that quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in the X-ray light curves of accreting black hole and neutron star binaries have the potential to be powerful diagnostics of strong field gravity. However, this potential…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-05-04 Adam Ingram , Thomas Maccarone , Juri Poutanen , Henric Krawczynski

Discovery of coherent pulsations from several ultraluminous X-ray pulsars (ULXPs) has provided direct evidence of super-critical accretion flow. However, geometrical structure of such accretion flow onto the central neutron star remains…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-05-01 Daiki Miura , Shogo B. Kobayashi , Hiroya Yamaguchi

Magnetized neutron stars power at least some ultra-luminous X-ray sources. The accretion flow in these cases is interrupted at the magnetospheric radius and then reaches the surface of a neutron star following magnetic field lines.…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2017-01-25 Alexander A. Mushtukov , Valery F. Suleimanov , Sergey S. Tsygankov , Adam Ingram

Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are off-nuclear compact objects with apparent luminosities above 10^39 erg/s, often exceeding the Eddington limit for stellar-mass black holes. Beaming is a commonly invoked mechanism to explain their…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-01-15 Ying-Han Mao , Xiang-Dong Li

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-11-28 Mayank Pathak , Banibrata Mukhopadhyay

The presence of radiatively driven outflows is well established in ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). These outflows are optically thick and can reprocess a significant fraction of the accretion luminosity. Assuming isotropic emission,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-10-27 Matthew Middleton , Nick Higginbottom , Christian Knigge , Norman Khan , Grzegorz Wiktorowicz

Most ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are believed to be X-ray binary systems, but previous observational and theoretical studies tend to prefer a black hole rather than a neutron star accretor. The recent discovery of 1.37 s pulsations…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-23 Yong Shao , Xiang-Dong Li

For a long time, the well-known supercritically accreting binary SS433 is being proposed as a prototype for a class of hypothetical bright X-ray sources that may be identified with the so-called Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in nearby…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-05-19 Pavel Abolmasov

Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are accreting black holes that may contain the missing population of intermediate mass black holes or reflect super-Eddington accretion physics. Ten years of Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of ULXs,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-05-30 Hua Feng , Roberto Soria

Soft X-ray Transients (SXRTs) have long been suspected to contain old, weakly magnetic neutron stars that have been spun up by accretion torques. After reviewing their observational properties, we analyse the different regimes that likely…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-30 S. Campana , M. Colpi , S. Mereghetti , L. Stella , M. Tavani

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-12-09 Sergei Fabrika , Yoshihiro Ueda , Alexander Vinokurov , Olga Sholukhova , Megumi Shidatsu

The lack of unambiguous detections of atomic features in the X-ray spectra of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) has proven a hindrance in diagnosing the nature of the accretion flow. The possible association of spectral residuals at soft…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-10-28 Matthew J. Middleton , Dominic J. Walton , Andrew Fabian , Timothy P. Roberts , Lucy Heil , Ciro Pinto , Gemma Anderson , Andrew Sutton