The Ultraluminous X-ray Source in Holmberg IX and its Environment

Details The Ultraluminous X-ray Source in Holmberg IX and its Environment The Ultraluminous X-ray Source in Holmberg IX and its Environment

2006-03-28

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603768v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

2 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the IAU Symposium 230, "Populations of High Energy Sources in Galaxies", D

Scientific paper

10.1017/S1743921306008519

We present optical observations of an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in Holmberg IX, a dwarf galaxy near M81. The ULX has an average X-ray luminosity of some 10^{40} erg/s. It is located in a huge (400pc x 300pc) ionized nebula being much larger than normal supernova remnants. From the observed emission lines (widths and ratios) we find that the structure is due to collisional excitation by shocks, rather than by photoionization. We identify the optical counterpart to be a 22.8 mag blue star (M_V=-5.0) belonging to a small stellar cluster. From isochrone fitting of our multi-colour photometry we determine a cluster age of 20 to 50 Myr. We also discovered strong stellar HeII4686 emission (equivalent width of 10 A) which proves the identification with the X-ray source, and which suggests the presence of an X-ray heated accretion disc around the putative black hole.

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