The Masses of the Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources

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Hst Proposal Id #10148 Galaxies

Scientific paper

Ultraluminous X-ray sources are non-nuclear sources in normal disk galaxies that are second only to AGNs in point-source luminosity. These enigmatic objects are either stellar mass black holes that are super-Eddington emitters, or sub-Eddington emission from 1E3-1E4 Msolar black holes. We can distinguish between these models by a direct determination of the mass of the primary, which requires knowing the spectral type of the secondary, its period, and its orbital velocity around the black hole. We propose to obtain UV spectra to determine the spectral type of two ULX secondaries {optical counterparts}, to infer the masses and radii of the secondaries and their suitability for radial velocity studies. For another ULX secondary, we already obtained a UV spectrum showing it to be a B0I star, so we propose three additional observations, which will yield the characteristic orbital velocity, help constrain the period, and reveal if the primary is a 1E3-1E4 Msolar black hole, which would produce velocities > 1000 km/sec.

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