Chandra X-Ray Point Sources, including Supernova 1979C, in the Spiral Galaxy M100

Abstract

Six x-ray point sources, with luminosities of $4\times 10^{38}-2\times 10^{39}\mathrm{ergs}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ in the 0.4--7 keV band, were detected in Chandra observations of the spiral galaxy M100. One source is identified with supernova SN 1979C and appears to have roughly constant x-ray flux for the period 16--20 years after the outburst. The x-ray spectrum is soft, as would be expected if the x-ray emission is due to the interaction of supernova ejecta with circumstellar matter. Most of the other sources are variable either within the Chandra observation or when compared to archival data. None are coincident with the peak of the radio emission at the nucleus. These sources have harder spectra than the supernova and are likely x-ray binaries. M100 has more bright x-ray sources than typical for spiral galaxies of its size. This is likely related to active star formation occurring in the galaxy.

accepted by the Astrophysical Journal, 7 pages

References in corpus (2)

• Detection of Nuclear X-ray Sources in Nearby Galaxies with Chandra
• Chandra Observations of "The Antennae" Galaxies (NGC 4038/39)

Cited by in corpus (15)

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• Evidence for a Black Hole Remnant in the Type IIL Supernova 1979C
• Late-time X-Ray, UV and Optical Monitoring of Supernova 1979C
• Interstellar gas in the Galaxy and the X-ray luminosity of Sgr A* in the recent past
• X-Ray Sources in the Star Forming Galaxies NGC 4194 and NGC 7541
• Young Crab-like pulsars and luminous X-ray sources in starbursts and optically dull galaxies
• Strongly decelerated expansion of SN1979C
• Chandra Observations of the Interacting NGC 4410 Galaxy Group
• A multi-coloured survey of NGC 253 with XMM-Newton: testing the methods used for creating luminosity functions from low-count data