A New, Clean Catalogue of Extragalactic Non-Nuclear X-Ray Sources
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Durham E-Theses A New, Clean Catalogue of Extragalactic Non-nuclear X-ray Sources EARNSHAW, HANNAH,PENN How to cite: EARNSHAW, HANNAH,PENN (2017) A New, Clean Catalogue of Extragalactic Non-nuclear X-ray Sources, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12330/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 A New, Clean Catalogue of Extragalactic Non-nuclear X-ray Sources Hannah Penn Earnshaw A thesis presented in accordance with the regulations for admittance to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy Department of Physics University of Durham United Kingdom April 2017 A New, Clean Catalogue of Extragalactic Non-nuclear X-ray Sources Hannah P. Earnshaw Abstract We use the XMM-Newton Serendipitous Source Catalogue to create a catalogue of non- nuclear extragalactic X-ray sources that is both large, containing 1,464 sources, and clean, with steps taken to minimise contamination. This catalogue contains 372 ultraluminous 39 1 X-ray sources (ULXs), objects with extreme luminosities (LX > 10 erg s− ) higher than expected for a stellar-mass black hole (BH) accreting at its Eddington limit, and thought to mainly be super-Eddington accreting compact objects. We find the colour properties of ULXs to be similar to lower-luminosity sources, distinct from active galactic nuclei, and similar between populations in spiral and elliptical galaxies. Our catalogue contains eight new candidate intermediate-mass BHs (IMBHs) amongst the most luminous sources, 33 transient ULXs, and five ULXs with high short-term variability. Of these highly variable ULXs, we closely examine M51 ULX-7, which exhibits a persistently hard spectrum and evidence of band-limited noise, arguments in favour of it being an IMBH. However, a pos- sible high-energy spectral turnover and its high dynamic range of flux bear similarities to properties observed in neutron star ULXs discovered to date. A useful subpopulation of 38 39 1 our catalogue are sources at the Eddington Threshold (10 < LX < 3 10 erg s ), the × − luminosity regime in which stellar-mass BHs may be accreting at or just below the Ed- dington limit. Our catalogue contains 666 such objects, four of which we studied in detail and found to demonstrate the heterogeneous nature of this luminosity regime, includ- ing high-luminosity sub-Eddington accretion states, the ultraluminous supersoft accretion regime, and sources in intermediate accretion modes. Finally, we searched for evidence of the most highly obscured and down-scattered super-Eddington accreting sources by looking for ultraluminous ultraviolet (ULUV) sources in UV source catalogues. We dis- covered six ULUV candidates in the Swift UVOT catalogue that are ideal for follow-up observations using HST. Declaration The work described in this thesis was undertaken between 2013 and 2017 while the author was a research student under the supervision of Dr Timothy P. Roberts in the Department of Physics at the University of Durham. No part of this thesis has been submitted for any other degree at the University of Durham or any other university. Portions of this work have appeared in the following papers: Chapter 2: A new, clean catalogue of extragalactic X-ray binaries in nearby galax- • ies, Earnshaw, H.P., Roberts, T.P., Middleton, M.J., Mateos, S., in preparation Chapter 3: A variable ULX and possible IMBH candidate in M51a, Earnshaw, • H.M., Roberts, T.P., Heil, L.M., Mezcua, M., Walton, D.J., Done, C., Harrison, F.A., Lansbury, G.B., Middleton, M.J., Sutton, A.D., MNRAS, 456, 3840, (2016) Chapter 4: Soft extragalactic X-ray binaries at the Eddington Threshold, Earnshaw, • H.M., Roberts, T.P., MNRAS, 467, 2690, (2017) Please note that while the author’s current middle initial is P., it was M. at the time of publication for the papers mentioned above. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotations from it should be pub- lished without the author’s prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. iii Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisors Dr Timothy Roberts and Prof Chris Done. My work has only been made possible through your steadfast support, both aca- demic and emotional. Thank you both for your high expectations of me and your guid- ance to help me meet them. I am also grateful to Dr Andrew Sutton and Dr Matthew Middleton, who have been particularly helpful in showing me the ropes when it comes to X-ray analysis. Thanks also to my officemates, next-door-officemates and honorary next-door-officemates Andrew, James, Ben, Flora, Emma, Daniel, Greg, Ra’ad and Raj – your excellent company and illuminating discussions over coffee have helped to make my time in the department especially enjoyable. Thank you to my friends outside of work who have been interested in hearing me talk about black holes over falafel and other foods that are not falafel. Thank you to the Dexters, and later my sister Ruth, for being great housemates and especially tolerant and understanding during the more stressful periods of my degree. And thank you to my family, who have supported me in each and every one of my space-related ambitions, including but not limited to a PhD in astronomy – your encouragement has always been a real blessing to me. iv Contents List of Tables viii List of Figures x 1 Introduction 1 1.1 X-ray observatories: past, present and future . .1 1.1.1 XMM-Newton . .3 1.1.2 Chandra . .6 1.1.3 NuSTAR . .7 1.1.4 Future missions: Hitomi and Athena . .8 1.2 Data analysis techniques for X-ray astronomy . 10 1.2.1 Spectral analysis . 12 1.2.2 Timing analysis . 14 1.3 Accretion onto compact objects . 17 1.3.1 Compact objects: neutron stars and black holes . 17 1.3.2 The fuel: companion stars . 19 1.3.3 Accretion . 21 1.3.4 Comptonisation . 25 1.3.5 Absorption . 26 1.4 Sub-Eddington accretion . 27 1.5 Ultraluminous X-ray sources . 31 1.5.1 Intermediate-mass black holes . 32 1.5.2 Beamed emission . 34 1.5.3 Super-Eddington accretion . 34 v Contents vi 1.5.4 Neutron star ULXs . 37 1.6 Thesis overview . 38 2 A new, clean catalogue of extragalactic non-nuclear X-ray sources in nearby galaxies 40 2.1 Introduction . 41 2.2 Data & sample selection . 43 2.2.1 Sample creation . 44 2.2.2 Removal of known contaminants . 46 2.2.3 Flagged detections . 47 2.2.4 Sample properties . 52 2.2.5 A complete subsample . 56 2.2.6 Quantifying unknown contamination . 57 2.2.7 Catalogue limitations . 58 2.3 Catalogue applications: analysis & discussion . 59 2.3.1 Properties of the complete subsample . 60 2.3.2 The most luminous ULXs . 67 2.3.3 The Eddington Threshold . 72 2.3.4 Variable and transient ULXs . 73 2.4 Conclusions . 74 3 A variable ULX and possible IMBH candidate in M51a 76 3.1 Introduction . 76 3.2 Reduction of archival data . 78 3.2.1 X-ray observations . 78 3.2.2 Radio observations . 82 3.2.3 Optical observations . 82 3.3 Analysis & results . 83 3.3.1 X-ray imaging & spectral analysis . 85 3.3.2 Timing analysis . 90 3.3.3 Optical counterparts . 97 3.4 Discussion . 100 Contents vii 3.4.1 Background AGN . 101 3.4.2 Neutron star . 102 3.4.3 Intermediate mass black hole . 103 3.5 Conclusions . 106 4 Soft extragalactic X-ray binaries at the Eddington Threshold 108 4.1 Introduction . 108 4.2 Sample selection . 110 4.2.1 NGC 300 X-1 . 113 4.2.2 NGC 4395 ULX-1 . 113 4.2.3 M51 ULS . 114 4.2.4 NGC 6946 ULX-1 . 114 4.3 Data reduction and analysis . 115 4.4 Results . 117 4.4.1 X-ray spectral fitting . 117 4.4.2 Timing analysis . 126 4.4.3 Optical counterparts . 131 4.5 Discussion . 131 4.5.1 NGC 300 X-1: the highest luminosity canonical states . 132 4.5.2 A selection of highly luminous supersoft sources . 133 4.6 Conclusions . 139 5 In search of ultraluminous ultraviolet sources 141 5.1 Introduction . 141 5.2 Data & sample selection . 143 5.2.1 Matching using GALEX . 144 5.2.2 Matching using UVOT . 146 5.3 The case for HST follow-up . 150 5.4 Conclusion . 152 6 Conclusions and future work 153 Bibliography 162 List of Tables 1.1 Properties of the main X-ray telescope instruments used in this investigation3 2.1 Catalogue numbers for all sources and for ULXs, broken down by galaxy type and including the complete subsample . 54 2.2 The median host galaxy properties for the catalogue . 55 2.3 14 high-luminosity sources within the full version of the catalogue that have previously been discovered or are otherwise poor IMBH candidates .