Populations of Supersoft X-ray Sources: Novae, tidal disruption, Type Ia supernovae, accretion-induced collapse, ionization, and intermediate-mass black holes?
arXiv:0909.2046 · doi:10.1002/asna.200911328
Abstract
Observations of hundreds of supersoft x-ray sources (SSSs) in external galaxies have shed light on the diversity of the class and on the natures of the sources. SSSs are linked to the physics of Type Ia supernovae and accretion-induced collapse, ultraluminous x-ray sources and black holes, the ionization of the interstellar medium, and tidal disruption by supermassive black holes. The class of SSSs has an extension to higher luminosities: ultraluminous SSSs have luminosities above 10^39 erg/s. There is also an extension to higher energies: quasisoft x-ray sources (QSSs) emit photons with energies above 1 eV, but few or none with energies above 2 keV. Finally, a significant fraction of the SSSs found in external galaxies switch states between observations, becoming either quasisoft or hard. For many systems ``supersoft'' refers to a temporary state; SSSs are sources, possibly including a variety of fundamentally different system types, that pass through such a state. We review those results derived from extragalactic data and related theoretical work that are most surprising and that suggest directions for future research.
submitted to Astron.Nachr.; latex, 6 figures
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Cited by in corpus (5)
- Ultraluminous X-ray Sources in the Chandra and XMM-Newton Era
- The Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae: II. Are they Double-Degenerate Binaries? The Symbiotic Channel
- The rates of Type Ia Supernovae. II. Diversity of events at low and high redshift
- A Luminous Be+White Dwarf Supersoft Source in the Wing of the SMC: MAXI J0158-744
- Relativistic baryonic jets from an ultraluminous supersoft X-ray source