Related papers: Ultraluminous X-ray sources are beamed
An expected signature of the presence of neutron stars in the population of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are large scale changes in X-ray luminosity, as systems reach spin equilibrium and a propeller state ensues. We explore the…
The disk instability picture gives a plausible explanation for the behavior of soft X-ray transient systems if self-irradiation of the disk is included. We show that there is a simple relation between the peak luminosity (at the start of an…
Motivated by the recent discoveries that six Ultraluminous X-ray Sources (ULXs) are powered by highly super-Eddington X-ray pulsars, we searched for additional pulsating ULX (PULX) candidates by identifying sources that exhibit long-term…
Most ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are argued to be powered by supercritical accretion onto compact objects. One of the key questions regarding these objects is whether or not the hard X-rays are geometrically beamed toward the…
Various arguments strongly suggest that the population of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs: apparent X-ray luminosity > Eddington limit for 10 Msun ~10^39 erg/s) in nearby galaxies are mostly stellar-mass X-ray binaries in unusual…
The nature of ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs), which are off-nuclear extragalactic X-ray sources that exceed the Eddington luminosity for a stellar-mass black hole, is still largely unknown. They might be black hole X-ray binaries in a…
The recent discovery of pulsating ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) shows that the apparent luminosity of accreting neutron stars (NSs) can exceed the Eddington luminosity by a factor of hundreds. The relation between the actual and…
Gravitational waves from the binary black hole (BH) merger GW150914 may enlighten our understanding of ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs), as BHs>30Msun can reach luminosities>4x10^39 erg s^-1 without exceeding their Eddington limit. It is…
A fraction of high-mass X-ray binaries are supergiant fast X-ray transients. These systems have on average low X-ray luminosities, but display short flares during which their X-ray luminosity rises by a few orders of magnitude. The leading…
Observations show that the 12.4 d binary system descending from the recent supernova SN 2022jli closely fits hypotheses of how low-mass X-ray binaries form, but requires an apparently super-Eddington accretion luminosity from the accreting…
Persistent activity of magnetars is associated with electric discharge that continually injects relativistic particles into the magnetosphere. Large active magnetic loops around magnetars must be filled with outflowing particles that…
Binaries with hot massive components are strong X-ray sources. Besides the intrinsic X-ray emission of individual binary members originating in their winds, X-ray emission stems from the accretion on the compact companion or from wind…
A number of Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs) have recently been detected in the optical/IR wavelengths. We use their inferred brightness to place general constraints on any model for this emission within the magnetar framework. We find that…
Soft X-ray spectra of ULXs show small deviations from a power-law model, that can be attributed to reprocessing in a fast, ionized outflow, or to thermal emission from a cool disk. If it is thermal emission, the cool peak temperature can be…
Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs) belong to a class of neutron stars believed to harbor the strongest magnetic fields in the universe, as indicated by their energetic bursts and their rapid spindowns. We have developed a theoretical model that…
We present a population synthesis study of the observed properties of the magnetars, which allows for X-ray selection effects, investigating the hypothesis that they are drawn from a population of progenitors that are more massive than…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) have captivated researchers for decades due to their exceptionally high luminosities and unique spectral characteristics. Some of these sources defy expectations by exhibiting super-Eddington luminosities…
We present a new analysis of X-ray spectra of the archetypal ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) Holmberg IX X-1 obtained by the Swift, XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observatories. This ULX is a persistent source, with a typical luminosity of ~10^40…
The number of pulsars with detected emission at X-ray and gamma-ray energies has been steadily growing, showing that beams of high-energy particles are commonly accelerated in pulsar magnetospheres, even though the location and number of…
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…