A New Ultraluminous X-ray Source in the Nearby Edge-on Spiral NGC 891
arXiv:1202.2118 · doi:10.1088/2041-8205/747/2/L39
Abstract
We report the discovery of a new candidate ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in the nearby edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 891. The source, which has an absorbed flux of F_X ~ 10^-12 erg/s/cm^2 (corresponding to L_X > 10^40 erg/s at 9 Mpc), must have begun its outburst in the past 5 years as it is not detected in prior X-ray observations between 1986 and 2006. We try empirical fits to the XMM-Newton spectrum, finding that the spectrum is fit very well as emission from a hot disk, a cool irradiated disk, or blurred reflection from the innermost region of the disk. The simplest physically motivated model with an excellent fit is a hot disk around a stellar-mass black hole (a super-Eddington outburst), but equally good fits are found for each model. We suggest several follow-up experiments that could falsify these models.
6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted to ApJ Letters
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Cited by in corpus (8)
- A Deep X-ray View of the Hot Halo in the Edge-on Spiral Galaxy NGC 891
- A Luminous Be+White Dwarf Supersoft Source in the Wing of the SMC: MAXI J0158-744
- The Hot, Accreted Halo of NGC 891
- JWST MIRI and NIRCam observations of NGC 891 and its circumgalactic medium
- Ultraluminous X-ray Sources in Seven Edge-On Spiral Galaxies
- Digging a little deeper: characterising three new extreme ULX candidates
- A Long-term Study of Ultraluminous X-ray Sources in NGC 891
- Dust and Ices in the SNR