Related papers: ULX collimation by outflows in moderately magnetiz…
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…
In this proof-of-concept study we demonstrate that in a binary system mass can be transferred toward an accreting compact object at extremely high rate. If the transferred mass is efficiently converted to X-ray luminosity (with disregard of…
One ultraluminous X-ray source in M82 is identified as an accreting neutron star recently (named as NuSTAR J095551+6940.8). It has a super-Eddington luminosity and is spinning up. For an aged magnetar, it is more likely to be a low magnetic…
We studied the colliding galaxy NGC 7714 with two XMM-Newton observations, six months apart. The galaxy contains two bright X-ray sources: we show that they have different physical nature. The off-nuclear source is an accreting compact…
Accreting X-ray pulsars are among the most luminous objects in the X-ray sky. In highly magnetized neutron stars (B~10^12 G), the flow of matter is dominated by the strong magnetic field. The general properties of accreting X-ray binaries…
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,…
We examined spectral evolution in ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) with apparent luminosities of about 10^40 ergs/s. Based on new results in this paper and those reported in the literature, two common spectral behaviors were found. Some…
XMM-Newton observations of 10 ULIRGs are reported. The aim is to investigate in hard X-rays a complete ULIRG sample selected from the bright IRAS 60$\mu$m catalogue. All sources are detected in X-rays, 5 of which for the first time. These…
Radiation pressure-dominated accretion disks are predicted to exhibit strong density inhomogeneities on scales much smaller than the disk scale height, due to the nonlinear development of photon bubble instability. Radiation would escape…
With the discovery of pulsations in some of the ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs), it is quite clear that most of the ULXs harbor either a neutron star or a stellar mass black hole as a compact object accreting at super-Eddington rates.…
While many observed ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs, Lx > 10^39 erg s^-1) could be extragalactic X-ray binaries (XRBs) emitting close to the Eddington limit, the highest-luminosity ULXs (Lx > 3x10^39 erg s^-1) exceed the isotropic…
A fraction of the Ultra Luminous X-ray (ULX) sources are known to be accreting neutron stars as they show coherent X-ray pulsations with pulse periods ranging from ~1-30 seconds. While initially thought to host intermediate-mass black…
It is anticipated that mass accretion rates exceeding approximately $10^{19}\,{\rm g\,s^{-1}}$ in X-ray pulsars lead to radiation-driven outflows from super-critical accretion discs. The outflows launched from the disc influence the angular…
Using ideal magnetohydrodynamics we examine an outflow from a disk surrounding a stellar-mass compact object. We demonstrate that the magnetic acceleration is efficient (of the order of 50% or more of the magnetic energy can be transformed…
The Ultra Luminous X-ray (ULX) source HLX-1 in the galaxy ESO 243-49 has an observed maximum unabsorbed X-ray luminosity of 1.3e42 erg/s (0.2-10.0 keV). From the conservative assumption that this value exceeds the Eddington limit by at most…
Thanks to a recent observation with XMM-Newton, we discovered periodic pulsations at P= 9.6652 +/- 0.0002 s in a new ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in the galaxy NGC 4631. This source, dubbed as X-8, shows one of the largest spin-up rates…
Ultraluminous X-ray sources represent extreme super-Eddington accretion regimes, and a subset is now known to host highly magnetized neutron stars. However, direct observational probes of their surface magnetic fields remain scarce. In this…
In order to understand the nature of super-Eddington accretion we must explore both the emission emerging directly from the inflow and its impact on the surroundings. In this paper we test whether we can use the optical line emission of…
It was recently proposed that a significant fraction of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) actually host a neutron star (NS) accretor. We have performed a systematic study on the NS ULX population in Milky Way-like galaxies, by combining…
Accretion discs in strong gravity ubiquitously produce winds, seen as blueshifted absorption lines in the X-ray band of both stellar mass X-ray binaries (black holes and neutron stars), and supermassive black holes. Some of the most…