An ultraluminous X-ray source powered by an accreting neutron star

Bachetti, Matteo; Harrison, Fiona A.; Walton, Dom; Grefenstette, Brian W.; Chakrabarty, Deepto; Fürst, Felix; Barret, D.; Beloborodov, Andrei M.; Boggs, Steven E.; Christensen, Finn Erland; Craig, William W.; Fabian, A. C.; Hailey, Charles J.; Hornschemeier, A. E.; Kaspi, V. M.; Kulkarni, S. R.; Maccarone, Thomas J.; Miller, J. M.; Rana, V.; Stern, Daniel; Tendulkar, Shriharsh P.; Tomsick, John A.; Webb, N.; Zhang, W. W.

doi:10.1038/nature13791

Cited by 709 publications

(850 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…For hyper-Eddington accretion this relation replaces the equationṖ w L Edd /c defining the single-scattering case. Numerical simulations by Hashizume et al (2015) produce just this kind of result: matter is blown away in almost all directions outside 1 These rates would also be super-Eddington for neutron stars or white dwarfs, so the recent discovery of regular X-ray pulsing from a ULX (Bachetti et al 2014), indicating a neutron-star accretor, is in line with theoretical expectations (Fabbiano et al 2003;King 2009). For brevity, we nevertheless refer to the accretor as a 'black hole' throughout.…”

Section: H Y P E R -E D D I N G To N B L Ac K H O L E W I N D Ssupporting

confidence: 52%

Black hole winds II: Hyper-Eddington winds and feedback

King

Muldrew

2015

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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We show that black holes supplied with mass at hyper-Eddington rates drive outflows with mildly sub-relativistic velocities. These are ∼0.1-0.2c for Eddington accretion factorsṁ acc ∼ 10-100, and ∼1500 km s −1 forṁ acc ∼ 10 4 . Winds like this are seen in the X-ray spectra of ultraluminous sources (ULXs), strongly supporting the view that ULXs are stellar-mass compact binaries in hyper-Eddington accretion states. SS433 appears to be an extreme ULX system (ṁ acc ∼ 10 4 ) viewed from outside the main X-ray emission cone. For less-extreme Eddington factorsṁ acc ∼ 10-100 the photospheric temperatures of the winds are ∼100 eV, consistent with the picture that the ultraluminous supersoft sources (ULSs) are ULXs seen outside the medium-energy X-ray beam, unifying the ULX/ULS populations and SS433 (actually a ULS but with photospheric emission too soft to detect). For supermassive black holes (SMBHs), feedback from hyper-Eddington accretion is significantly more powerful than the usual near-Eddington ('UFO') case, and if realized in nature would imply M − σ masses noticeably smaller than observed. We suggest that the likely warping of the accretion disc in such cases may lead to much of the disc mass being expelled, severely reducing the incidence of such strong feedback. We show that hyper-Eddington feedback from bright ULXs can have major effects on their host galaxies. This is likely to have important consequences for the formation and survival of small galaxies.Key words: black hole physics -galaxies: active -quasars: general -quasars: supermassive black holes -galaxies: Seyfert -X-rays: binaries. I N T RO D U C T I O NIt is now widely accepted that winds driven by accretion on to black holes have major effects on their surroundings. Wide-angle winds from supermassive black holes (SMBH) in galaxy centres are probably the origin of the SMBH -galaxy scaling relations (for reviews of observations and theory see Kormendy & Ho 2013;King & Pounds 2015). King & Pounds (2003) gave a simple picture of black hole winds for the case when accretion on to the black hole is close to the Eddington value. This paper extends this to cover cases where the hole's mass supply rate is much larger. Shakura & Sunyaev (1973) set out a general theoretical picture of disc winds. They considered accretion discs where the mass supply at the outer edge would be super-Eddington near the black hole. At large distances from the hole, gas spirals inwards through an accretion disc and radiation pressure is unimportant. It first becomes E-mail: ark@astro.le.ac.uk significant in the disc at the spherization radius R sph , where the local energy release GMṀ/R sph is of order the Eddington luminositywith M the black hole mass,Ṁ the instantaneous accretion rate, and κ the electron scattering opacity. Some of the accreting gas is driven out as a wind by radiation pressure, and Shakura & Sunyaev assumed that this occurs at all disc radii R < R sph in such a way that GMṀ(R)/R ∼ L Edd at all R. This means that the accretion rate through the disc decr...

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Section: H Y P E R -E D D I N G To N B L Ac K H O L E W I N D Ssupporting

confidence: 52%

Black hole winds II: Hyper-Eddington winds and feedback

King

Muldrew

2015

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…The most likely explanation for the vast majority of ULXs is that they are stellar-mass BHs (or neutron stars; Bachetti et al 2014) accreting well above the critical accretion rate and their luminosity is a few times the classical Eddington limit of spherical accretion. Another possibility is that ULXs are powered by accreting BHs up to »  M 80 (Belczynski et al 2010), several times more massive than typical Galactic stellar-mass BHs (~ M M 5 15 -: Kreidberg et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Eclipsing Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources in M51

Urquhart

Soria

2016

ApJ

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We present the discovery, from archival Chandra and XMM-Newton data, of X-ray eclipses in two ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs), located in the same region of the galaxy M51: CXOM51 J132940.0+471237 (ULX-1, for simplicity) and CXOM51 J132939.5+471244 (ULX-2). Three eclipses were detected for ULX-1 and two for ULX-2. The presence of eclipses puts strong constraints on the viewing angle, suggesting that both ULXs are seen almost edge-on and are certainly not beamed toward us. Despite the similar viewing angles and luminosities ( »Ĺ 2 10 X 39 erg s −1 in the 0.3-8 keV band for both sources), their X-ray properties are different. ULX-1 has a soft spectrum, well fitted by Comptonization emission from a medium with electron temperature » kT 1 keV e . ULX-2 is harder, well fitted by a slim disk with » kT 1.5 in -1.8 keV and normalization consistent with a ∼10 M e black hole. ULX-1 has a significant contribution from multi-temperature thermal-plasma emission ( »Ĺ 2 10 X,mekal 38 erg s −1 ). About 10% of this emission remains visible during the eclipses, proving that the emitting gas comes from a region slightly more extended than the size of the donor star. From the sequence and duration of the Chandra observations in and out of eclipse, we constrain the binary period of ULX-1 to be either »6.3 days, or ≈12.5-13 days. If the donor star fills its Roche lobe (a plausible assumption for ULXs), both cases require an evolved donor, most likely a blue supergiant, given the young age of the stellar population in that Galactic environment.

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“…At extremely high mass accretion rates typical for the recently discovered pulsating ULXs (Bachetti 2014;Israel 2017a,b) the accretion flow at the magnetospheric surface forms an optically thick envelope, which shapes the observed pulse profiles . We discuss the influence of the magnetospheric accretion flow and show that it can dramatically change the observational manifestation of super-critical XRPs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…Under these conditions the system can produce a luminosity well above the Eddington limit, which is L Edd 2 × 10 38 erg s −1 for a typical NS. This concept can explain ultraluminous XPRs (Mushtukov et al 2015a), whose luminosity is detected to be as high as 10 40 − 10 41 erg s −1 (Bachetti 2014;Israel 2017a,b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

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On the radiation beaming of bright X-ray pulsars and constraints on neutron star mass–radius relation

Mushtukov

Verhagen

Tsygankov

et al. 2017

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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The luminosity of accreting magnetised neutron stars can largely exceed the Eddington value due to appearance of accretion columns. The height of the columns can be comparable to the neutron star radius. The columns produce the X-rays detected by the observer directly and illuminate the stellar surface, which reprocesses the X-rays and causes additional component of the observed flux. The geometry of the column and the illuminated part of the surface determines the radiation beaming. Curved spacetime affects the angular flux distribution. We construct a simple model of the beam patterns formed by direct and reflected flux from the column. We take into account the possibility of appearance of accretion columns, whose height is comparable to the neutron star radius. We argue that depending on the compactness of the star the flux from the column can be either strongly amplified due to gravitational lensing, or significantly reduced due to column eclipse by the star. The eclipses of high accretion columns result in specific features in pulse profiles. Their detection can put constraints on the neutron star radius. We speculate that column eclipses are observed in X-ray pulsar V 0332+53, leading us to the conclusion of large neutron star radius in this system (∼ 15 km if M ∼ 1.4M ). We point out that the beam pattern can be strongly affected by scattering in the accretion channel at high luminosity, which has to be taken into account in the models reproducing the pulse profiles.

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An ultraluminous X-ray source powered by an accreting neutron star

Abstract: Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX) are off-nuclear point sources in nearby galaxies whose X-ray luminosity exceeds the theoretical maximum for spherical

Cited by 709 publications

References 28 publications

Black hole winds II: Hyper-Eddington winds and feedback

Black hole winds II: Hyper-Eddington winds and feedback

Two Eclipsing Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources in M51

On the radiation beaming of bright X-ray pulsars and constraints on neutron star mass–radius relation

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