The ionizing and heating power of ultraluminous X-ray sources under the geometrical beaming model
K. Kovlakas, T. Fragos, D. Schaerer, A. Mesinger
备注:
8 pages. 6 figures, 1 table. This article has been accepted for publication in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal. The full Table 1 will be made available via CDS
While there is now a consensus that X-ray binaries (XRBs) are the dominant X-ray sources in the early Universe and play a significant role during the epoch of heating of the intergalactic medium (IGM), recent studies report contradicting results regarding their contribution in the nebular emission of local Universe galaxies. Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs), which dominate the X-ray budget of normal galaxies, may be important interstellar-medium (ISM) ionizing sources. However, their output in the extreme UV (EUV) and soft--X-ray part of the spectrum remains observationally unconstrained. In this paper, we predict the ionizing and heating power from ULX populations under the geometrical beaming scenario, and three models describing the emission from super-critical accretion disks. We find that our theoretical spectra for ULX populations cannot (can) explain the HeII (NeV) emission observed in some galaxies, with their contribution being less (more) important than the underlying stellar population. Stochastic fluctuations in the number of ULXs may allow for equal contributions in the HeII emission, in a fraction of galaxies. We provide average spectra of ULX populations as an input to local, and early-Universe studies. We find that the soft--X-ray emission arising from super-critical accretion is significant for the heating of the IGM, and consistent with recent constraints from the 21-cm cosmic signal. Based on the dependence on the adopted compact-object (CO) mass and accretion model, we encourage efforts in modeling ULX spectra via simulations, and their combination with detailed binary population synthesis models.
How Beaming Shapes the Demographics of Ultraluminous X-ray Sources?
School of Astronomy and Space Science, Nanjing University(南京大学天文与空间科学学院);Key Laboratory of Modern Astronomy and Astrophysics (Nanjing University), Ministry of Education(教育部现代天文与天体物理重点实验室(南京大学))
A Phase-resolved View of Millihertz Quasi-periodic Oscillations in the Ultraluminous X-ray Source M51 ULX-7: Evidence for a Magnetically Truncated Disk and Geometrical Beaming
Possible manifestations of accreting magnetars are discussed. It is shown that the four ultra-luminous X-ray pulsars can be understood in the accreting low magnetic field magnetar scenario. The NGC300 ULX1 pulsar may have a higher dipole magnetic field than other sources. General constraint on their mass accretion rate confirmed their super-Eddington nature. Lower limits on their beaming factor are obtained. They do not seem to have strong beaming. The duty cycle of the ULX burst state can also be constrained by their timing observations. ULX pulsars may be in accretion equilibrium in the long…
Most ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are argued to be powered by supercritical accretion onto compact objects. One of the key questions regarding these objects is whether or not the hard X-rays are geometrically beamed toward the symmetric axis. We propose to test the scenario using disk irradiation, to see how much the outer accretion disk sees the central hard X-rays. We collect a sample of 11 bright ULXs with an identification of a unique optical counterpart, and model their optical fluxes considering two irradiating sources: soft X-rays from the photosphere of the optically thick wind d…
Energy flow and radiation efficiency in radiative GRMHD simulations of neutron star ultraluminous X-ray sources
Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences(波兰科学院尼古拉·哥白尼天体物理中心);Research Centre for Computational Physics and Data Processing, Institute of Physics, Silesian University in Opava(奥帕瓦西里西亚大学物理学院计算物理与数据处理研究中心);Nicolaus Copernicus Superior School, College of Astronomy and Natural Sciences(尼古拉·哥白尼高等学院天文与自然科学学院)
Since the detection of X-ray pulses from ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in 2014, neutron stars have been considered as their central objects. However, it remains unclear how neutron stars can be brighter than the Eddington luminosity, and no unified view exists on the magnetic field of neutron stars and the degree of beaming. Recent observations suggest that some X-ray pulsating ULXs have Be-type donors, and some of them occupy the same region as Be-type high-mass X-ray binaries (Be-HMXBs) on the Corbet diagram, which reveals the relation between spin and orbital periods. This suggests tha…
JWST reveals a highly ionized nebula powered by an ultraluminous X-ray source with a massive black hole in the metal-poor galaxy Holmberg II
Space Telescope Science Institute(太空望远镜科学研究所);AURA for ESA, Space Telescope Science Institute(欧洲航天局天文研究联盟,太空望远镜科学研究所);Institut für Physik und Astronomie, Universität Potsdam(波茨坦大学物理与天文学研究所);Sterrenkundig Observatorium, Universiteit Gent(根特大学天文台);Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC)(空间科学研究所(地球物理与化学研究所,西班牙国家研究委员会));Centro de Astrobiología – Departamento de Astrofísica (CSIC-INTA)(天体生物学中心 - 天体物理学系(西班牙国家研究委员会-国家航空航天技术研究所))
本研究通过JWST光谱观测,首次在ULX Ho II X-1周围探测到[Ne V]和[Ne VI],直接证实该ULX关联低金属丰度星系中的高度电离星云,其电离由吸积黑洞驱动,电离条件呈各向异性。
We report the discovery of possible periodic X-ray dips in a pulsating ultraluminous X-ray source, M51 ULX-7, with the archival Changra observations. With ~20 days of monitoring in the superorbital descending state, we discovered three dips with separations of ~2 and ~8 days via the Bayesian block technique. A phase-dispersion minimization and a $χ^2$ test suggest that the dip is likely recurrent with a period of ~2 days, consistent with the orbital period of M51 ULX-7. We interpret the dip as an obscuring of the emission from the pulsar by the vertical structure on the stream-disk interaction…
The recent discovery of periodic pulsations from several members of the ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) family in nearby galaxies as well as in our own galaxy unveiled the nature of the accreting compact object. Neutron stars rather than black holes are currently believed to power a substantial number of ULXs whether or not pulsations are observed. The detection of cyclotron absorption lines in the X-ray spectrum of a ULX provides an alternative way to identify the compact object as a neutron star. Among the non-pulsating ULXs, the presence of a cyclotron resonance scattering feature (CRSF) i…
The accreting compact objects in most of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are likely to be neutron stars rather than black holes as suggested by the recent detection of periodic pulsations from some of these sources located in neighboring galaxies and one ULX that has hitherto been discovered in our own galaxy. As a member of the ULX family, NGC 300 ULX1 is a new pulsating ULX (PULX) spinning up at substantially high rates compared with other PULXs. In this paper, the strength of the magnetic field on the surface of the neutron star is inferred from the energy of the cyclotron absorption lin…
Neutrinos from hidden ultraluminous X-ray sources in the Galaxy
Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía (CCT La Plata, CONICET(阿根廷射电天文研究所);CICPBA(拉普拉塔国立大学天文与地球物理学院);UNLP)(马德普拉塔物理研究所);Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata(马德普拉塔国立大学理学院物理系);Instituto de Investigaciones Físicas de Mar del Plata (IFIMAR – CONICET);Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata
We analyzed the X-ray power density spectra of five ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) NGC5408 X-1, NGC6946 X-1, M82 X-1, NGC1313 X-1 and IC342 X-1 that are the only ULXs which display both flat-topped noise (FTN) and quasi-periodic oscillations (QPO). We studied the QPO frequencies, fractional root-mean-square (rms) variability, X-ray luminosity and spectral hardness. We found that the level of FTN is anti-correlated with the QPO frequency. As the frequency of the QPO and brightness of the sources increase, their fractional variability decreases. We propose a simple interpretation using the s…
Pulsating ultraluminous X-ray sources (PULXs) are accreting pulsars with apparent X-ray luminosity exceeding $10^{39}\, \rm erg\ s^{-1}$. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations to investigate whether high collimation effect (or strong beaming effect) is dominant in the presence of accretion outflows, for the fan beam emission of the accretion column of the neutron stars in PULXs. We show that the three nearby PULXs (RX J0209.6$-$7427, Swift J0243.6+6124 and SMC X-3), namely the three musketeers here, have their main pulsed emission not strongly collimated even if strong outflows exist. This conclu…
The X-ray spectral evolution of the ultraluminous X-ray source Holmberg IX X-1
本文对Swift、XMM-Newton和NuSTAR天文台观测到的Holmberg IX X-1原型超亮X射线源(ULX)的X射线谱进行了新的分析。这颗ULX是一个持久的光源,典型的光度约为10^40 erg s^-1,在8年的时间里变化了4 ~ 5倍。我们发现,它的光谱往往演变从相对平坦的或两个组件的光谱中的中等能量带(1-6千电子伏),在较低的光度,光谱是明显弯曲和盘状在最高的光度,与峰值能量在弯曲的光谱往往随着光度的增加而减少。我们认为,ULX的光谱演化可以解释的超级爱丁顿吸积模型,在这种情况下,我们认为ULX的疏散漏斗沿其旋转轴,其大规模的辐射驱动风的范围内。光谱的变化,然后起源于增强的几何光束的吸积率增加,风漏斗变窄,导致从超临界流的中心区域的散射通量比各向同性的热发射风更快地变亮,因此弯曲的硬光谱分量占主导地位,在最高的光度。风也使漏斗边缘的光子向下康普顿散射,导致光谱的峰值能量降低。我们还证实,Holmberg IX X-1显示光谱简并与光度,并建议所观察到的差异自然解释的建议风几何的黑洞旋转轴的进动。
Chandra observations of the nearby, candidate Lyman-continuum (LyC) emitting galaxy Tol 0440-381 show brightening of an X-ray source by at least a factor of 4 to a luminosity of 1.6E40 erg/s over 3.8~days. The X-ray emission likely arises from either a low-luminosity AGN or an ultraluminous X-ray source. The properties of the X-ray source are similar to those found in Haro 11 and Tololo 1247-232, the only other LyC-emitting galaxies that have been resolved in X-rays. All three galaxies host luminous, variable, and hard spectrum X-ray sources that are likely accretion-powered. Accretion onto co…
The bubble nebula surrounding NGC 1313 X-2 is believed to be powered by high velocity winds from the central ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) as a result of supercritical accretion. With the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) observation of the nebula, we find enhanced OIII emission at locations spatially coincident with clusters of stars and the central X-ray source, suggesting that photoionization in addition to shock-ionization plays an important role in powering the nebula. The X-ray luminosity of the ULX and the number of massive stars in the nebula region can account for the requir…
We have analyzed how anisotropic emission of radiation affects the observed sample of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) by performing simulations of the evolution of stellar populations, employing recent developments in stellar and binary physics, and by utilizing a geometrical beaming model motivated by theory and observation. Whilst ULXs harboring black hole accretors (BH ULXs) are typically emitting isotropically, the majority of ULXs with neutron star accretors (NS ULXs) are found to be beamed. These findings confirm previous assertions that a significant fraction of ULXs are hidden from …
Photoionization of the Composite Nebula Surrounding NGC 5408 X-1: Implications for Beamed Emission
Tsinghua University(清华大学);Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院高能物理研究所);INAF–Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino(意大利国家天体物理研究所都灵天文台);The University of Sydney(悉尼大学);European Southern Observatory(欧洲南方天文台);Xiamen University(厦门大学)