Ultraluminous X-ray Sources in Seven Edge-On Spiral Galaxies [HEAP]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2109.14407


We investigate a sample of seven edge-on spiral galaxies using Chandra observations. Edge-on spiral galaxies allow us to clearly separate source associated with their star-forming regions versus the outer edges of the system; offering a clear advantage over other systems. We uncover a number of X-ray point sources across these galaxies, and after eliminating contaminating foreground and background sources, we identify 12 candidate ultraluminous X-ray sources. All of these sources are projected onto the central regions, implying that the majority of ULXs in this sample of spiral galaxies are disk/bulge, and thus not halo sources. This also includes two transient ULXs, which may be long-duration transients and low mass X-ray binaries. This finding illustrates the need for further studies of transient ULXs.

Read this paper on arXiv…

K. Dage, N. Vowell, E. Thygesen, et. al.
Thu, 30 Sep 21
62/82

Comments: accepted to MNRAS