paper

The ultra-luminous X-ray source in M82: an intermediate mass black hole with a giant companion

arXiv:astro-ph/0602230 · doi:10.1111/j.1745-3933.2006.00176.x

Abstract

The starburst galaxy M82 at a distance of 12 million light years, is the host of an unusually bright erg/s X-ray point source, which is best explained by an accreting black hole to times more massive than the Sun. Though the strongest candidate for a so called intermediate mass black hole, the only support stems from the observed luminosity and the 0.05-0.1 Hz quasi periodicity in its signal. Interestingly, the Myr old star cluster MGG-11 which has been associated with the X-ray source is sufficiently dense that an intermediate mass black hole could have been produced in the cluster core via collision runaway. The recently discovered day periodicity in the X-ray source X-1 further supports the hypothesis that this source is powered by a black hole several hundred times more massive than the Sun. We perform detailed binary evolution simulations with an accreting compact object of $10-5000 \msun $ and find that the X-ray luminosity, the age of the cluster, the observed quasi periodic oscillations and the now observed orbital period are explained best by a black hole of $200-5000 \msun $ that accretes material from a $22-25\msun$ giant companion in a state of Roche-lobe contact. Interestingly such a companion star is consistent with the expectation based on the tidal capture in a young and dense star cluster like MGG-11, making the picture self consistent.

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