Related papers: Intermediate Mass Black Holes in Accreting Binarie…

The X-ray binary Cygnus X-2 (Cyg X-2) has recently been shown to contain a secondary that is much more luminous and hotter than is appropriate for a low-mass subgiant. We present detailed binary-evolution calculations which demonstrate that…

Stellar mass black hole binaries have individual masses between 10-80 solar masses. These systems may emit gravitational waves at frequencies detectable at Megaparsec distances by space-based gravitational wave observatories. In a previous…

Some ultraluminous X-ray sources in nearby galaxies show soft components resembling thermal disc emission. Calculations based on blackbody emission then indicate that the accreting black holes at the centres of these discs have masses of…

Ultra-luminous X-ray sources are usually believed to be black holes with mass about $10^{2-3}M_{\odot}$. However, the recent discovery of NuSTAR J095551+6940.8 in M82 by Bachetti et al. shows that it holds the spin period $P=1.37\rm\,s$ and…

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…

Ultra-Luminous X-ray sources are accreting black holes that might represent strong evidence of the Intermediate Mass Black Holes (IMBH), proposed to exist by theoretical studies but with no firm detection (as a class) so far. We analyze the…

We report the discovery of Type I (thermonuclear) X-ray bursts from the transient source XMMU J181227.8-181234 = XTE J1812-182. We found 7 X-ray bursts in Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer observations during the 2008 outburst, confirming the…

Globular clusters (GCs) are thought to harbor the long-sought population of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). We present a systematic search for a putative IMBH in 81 Milky Way GCs, based on archival Chandra X-ray observations. We find…

We recently discovered the X-ray/optical outbursting source 3XMM J215022.4-055108. It was best explained as the tidal disruption of a star by an intermediate-mass black hole of mass of a few tens of thousand solar masses in a massive star…

The brightest Ultra-Luminous X-ray source HLX-1 in the galaxy ESO 243-49 provides strong evidence for the existence of intermediate mass black holes. As the luminosity and thus the mass estimate depend on the association of HLX-1 with ESO…

The globular cluster G1 (Mayall II) in M31 is the most massive (~10^7 M_sun) stellar cluster in the Local Group, and it has the highest central velocity dispersion (~28 km/s). It has been claimed to host a central ~20,000 M_sun black hole,…

We report the discovery of a candidate stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way globular cluster M62. We detected the black hole candidate, which we term M62-VLA1, in the core of the cluster using deep radio continuum imaging from the Karl…

We present an X-ray study of our nearest starburst galaxy IC 10, based on XMM-Newton and Chandra observations. A list of 73 XMM-Newton and 28 Chandra detections of point-like X-ray sources in the field is provided; a substantial fraction of…

Recently the first finding of a spin period of an accreting neutron star in M31 is reported. The observed spin period is 1.2 s and it shows 1.27 d modulations due to orbital motion. From the orbital information, the mass donor could not be…

Four XMM-Newton X-ray observations of the central region of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) have revealed an X-ray source that varies in luminosity over \~1--3, 10^{38} erg s^{-1} between observations and also displays significant variability…

In the last few years multiwavelength observations have boosted our understanding of Ultraluminous X-ray Sources (ULXs). Yet, the most fundamental questions on ULXs still remain to be definitively answered: do they contain stellar or…

Abridged: Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) separated by (sub)-pc scales represent one of the latest stages of hierarchical galaxy assembly. However, many of these objects are hidden behind large columns of gas and dust at 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 study the formation of low-mass X-ray binaries with a black hole as accreting object. The performed semi-analytic analysis reveals that the formation rate of black holes in low-mass X-ray binaries is about two orders of magnitude smaller…

Ultra-luminous X-ray sources are extragalactic objects located outside the nucleus of the host galaxy with bolometric luminosities >10^39 erg s^-1. These extreme luminosities - if the emission is isotropic and below the theoretical (i.e.…