Optical Emission Lines From a Suspected Black Hole Binary in an Extragalactic Globular Cluster

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

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Scientific paper

We present optical spectra of a most unusual globular cluster in the elliptical galaxy NGC1399. Previously known to harbor an ultraluminous (>1e39 ergs/s) X-ray source, Magellan LDSS-3, IMACS, and MIKE spectra in the 4000-9000 Angstrom range reveal a pair of strong emission lines, identified as [OIII] and [NII]. Since the X-ray luminosity of the source far exceeds the Eddington limit of a neutron star, the object is most likely an accreting black hole X-ray binary. It is likely that the optical emission lines result from collisional ionization of a strong wind from the X-ray binary interacting with material surrounding the black hole. We investigate whether the observed optical emission lines can put constraints on the mass of the black hole, distinguishing a stellar mass (10 solar mass) black hole from an intermediate mass ( 1000 solar mass) black hole.

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