We report new detections of the two transient ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in NGC 5128 from an ongoing series of Chandra observations. Both sources have previously been observed L sub(x)(2-3) x ...~10 super(39) erg s super(-1), at the lower end of the ULX luminosity range. The new observations allow us to study these sources in the luminosity regime frequented by the Galactic black hole X-ray binaries (BH XBs). We present the recent lightcurves of both ULXs. 1RXH J132519.8-430312 (ULX1) was observed at L sub(x) approx = 1 x 10 super(38) erg s super(-1), while CXOU J132518.2-430304 (ULX2) declined to L sub(x) approx = 2 x 10 super(37) erg s super(-1) and then lingered at this luminosity for hundreds of days. We show that a reasonable upper limit for both duty cycles is 0.2, with a lower limit of 0.12 for ULX2. This duty cycle is larger than anticipated for transient ULXs in old stellar populations. By fitting simple spectral models in an observation with ~50 counts we recover properties consistent with Galactic BH XBs, but inconclusive as to the spectral state. We utilize quantile analyses to demonstrate that the spectra are generally soft, and that in one observation the spectrum of ULX2 is inconsistent with a canonical hard state at > 95% confidence. This is contrary to what would be expected of an accreting intermediate mass black hole primary, which we would expect to be in the hard state at these luminosities. We discuss the paucity of transient ULXs discovered in early-type galaxies and excogitate explanations. We suggest that the number of transient ULXs scales with the giant and sub-giant populations, rather than the total number of XBs.
We present the discovery of fast infrared/X-ray correlated variability in the black-hole transient GX 339-4. The source was observed with sub-second time resolution simultaneously with VLT/ISAAC and ...RXTE/PCA in August 2008, during its persistent low-flux highly variable hard state. The data show a strong correlated variability, with the infrared emission lagging the X-ray emission by 100 ms. The short time delay and the nearly symmetric cross-correlation function, together with the measured brightness temperature of ~2.5 x 10^6 K, indicate that the bright and highly variable infrared emission most likely comes from a jet near the black hole. Under standard assumptions about jet physics, the measured time delay can provide us a lower limit of Gamma > 2 for the Lorentz factor of the jet. This suggests that jets from stellar-mass black holes are at least mildly relativistic near their launching region. We discuss implications for future applications of this technique.
Diffuse 511-keV line emission, from the annihilation of cold positrons, has been observed in the direction of the Galactic Centre for more than 30 yr. The latest high-resolution maps of this emission ...produced by the SPI instrument on INTEGRAL suggest at least one component of the emission is spatially coincident with the distribution of ∼70 luminous, low-mass X-ray binaries detected in the soft gamma-ray band. The X-ray band, however, is generally a more sensitive probe of X-ray binary populations. Recent X-ray surveys of the Galactic Centre have discovered a much larger population (>4000) of faint, hard X-ray point sources. We investigate the possibility that the positrons observed in the direction of the Galactic Centre originate in pair-dominated jets generated by this population of fainter accretion-powered X-ray binaries. We also consider briefly whether such sources could account for unexplained diffuse emission associated with the Galactic Centre in the microwave (the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe‘haze’) and at other wavelengths. Finally, we point out several unresolved problems in associating Galactic Centre 511-keV emission with the brightest X-ray binaries.
Radio sources in the Chandra Galactic Bulge Survey Maccarone, Thomas J; Torres, Manuel A. P; Britt, Christopher T ...
Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
11 November 2012, Volume:
426, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Abstract
We discuss radio sources in the Chandra Galactic Bulge Survey region. By cross-matching the X-ray sources in this field with the NRAO VLA Sky Survey archival data, we find 12 candidate ...matches. We present a classification scheme for radio/X-ray matches in surveys taken in or near the Galactic plane, taking into account other multiwavelength data. We show that none of the matches found here is likely to be due to coronal activity from normal stars because the radio to X-ray flux ratios are systematically too high. We show that one of the source could be a radio pulsar, and that one could be a planetary nebula, but that the bulk of the sources are likely to be background active galactic nuclei (AGN), with many confirmed through a variety of approaches. Several of the AGN are bright enough in the near-infrared (and presumably in the optical) to use as probes of the interstellar medium in the inner Galaxy.
Abstract
We present a detailed study of the evolution of the Galactic black hole transient GRS 1716−249 during its 2016–2017 outburst at optical (Las Cumbres Observatory), mid-infrared (Very Large ...Telescope), near-infrared (Rapid Eye Mount telescope), and ultraviolet (the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope) wavelengths, along with archival radio and X-ray data. We show that the optical/near-infrared and UV emission of the source mainly originates from a multi-temperature accretion disk, while the mid-infrared and radio emission are dominated by synchrotron emission from a compact jet. The optical/UV flux density is correlated with the X-ray emission when the source is in the hard state, consistent with an X-ray irradiated accretion disk with an additional contribution from the viscous disk during the outburst fade. We find evidence for a weak, but highly variable jet component at mid-infrared wavelengths. We also report the long-term optical light curve of the source and find that the quiescent
i
′
-band magnitude is 21.39 ± 0.15 mag. Furthermore, we discuss how previous estimates of the system parameters of the source are based on various incorrect assumptions, and so are likely to be inaccurate. By comparing our GRS 1716−249 data set to those of other outbursting black hole X-ray binaries, we find that while GRS 1716−249 shows similar X-ray behavior, it is noticeably optically fainter, if the literature distance of 2.4 kpc is adopted. Using several lines of reasoning, we argue that the source distance is further than previously assumed in the literature, likely within 4–17 kpc, with a most likely range of ∼4–8 kpc.
We present optical Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) spectroscopy of RZ 2109, a globular cluster (GC) in the elliptical galaxy NGC 4472. This GC is notable for ...hosting an ultraluminous X-ray source as well as associated strong and broad OIII lambdalambda4959, 5007 emission. We show that the HST/STIS spectroscopy spatially resolves the OIII emission in RZ 2109. While we are unable tomake a precise determination of the morphology of the emission-line nebula, the best-fitting models all require that the OIII lambda5007 emission has a half-light radius in the range 3-7 pc. The extended nature of the OIII lambda5007 emission is inconsistent with published models that invoke an intermediate-mass black hole origin. It is also inconsistent with the ionization of ejecta from a nova in the cluster. The spatial scale of the nebula could be produced via the photoionization of a strong wind driven from a stellar mass black hole accreting at roughly its Eddington rate.
Energetic feedback driven by the large-scale (100’s of kpc) lobes of classical radio galaxies is known to play an important role in shaping galaxy evolution. However, the prevalence of young and ...compact jets – and their impact on the interstellar medium – remains an open question. Multi-epoch radio surveys with cadences of years to decades offer a promising means of identifying even faint (mJy-level) jets that are compact and potentially young on the basis of variability. Recently, a comparison of images from the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS)
and the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeters (FIRST) survey has revealed a population of distant (0.2 < z < 3.2) quasars that have brightened dramatically in the past 1–2 decades. These quasars appear to have transitioned from “radio-quiet” nondetections in FIRST to “radio-loud” detections in VLASS. Extensive multiband follow-up observations with the VLA from 1 to 18GHz have revealed compact (sub-kpc) radio sources that are consistent with young
jets that were recently triggered. Here, we summarize the status of our on-going study of quasars with newborn jets identified in the radio time domain.
Full text
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The evolution of massive stars is influenced by the mass lost to stellar winds over their lifetimes. These winds limit the masses of the stellar remnants (such as black holes) that the stars ...ultimately produce. We used radio astrometry to refine the distance to the black hole x-ray binary Cygnus X-l, which we found to be 2.22.sup.+0.18.sub.-0.17 kiloparsecs. When combined with archival optical data, this implies a black hole mass of 21.2 + or - 2.2 solar masses, which is higher than previous measurements. The formation of such a high-mass black hole in a high-met allicity system (within the Milky Way) constrains wind mass loss from massive stars.
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