Globular Cluster Ultraluminous X-ray Sources in the Furthest Early-Type Galaxies

Abstract

Ultraluminous X-ray Sources (ULXs) in globular clusters are low mass X-ray binaries that achieve high X-ray luminosities through a currently uncertain accretion mechanism. Using archival Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope observations, we perform a volume-limited search ($\lesssim$ 70 Mpc) of 21 of the most massive ($>10^{11.5}{M}_{\odot }$) early-type galaxies to identify ULXs hosted by globular cluster (GC) candidates. We find a total of 34 ULX candidates above the expected background within 5 times the effective radius of each galaxy, with 10 of these ($\sim 29.4\%$) potentially hosted by a GC. A comparison of the spatial and luminosity distributions of these new candidate GC ULXs with previously identified GC ULXs shows that they are similar: both samples peak at $L_X\sim$ a few $\times 10^{39}$ erg/s and are typically located within a few effective radii of their host galaxies.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 10 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables

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