On the compact nature of the most luminous ULX in the Cartwheel ring

Details On the compact nature of the most luminous ULX in the Cartwheel ring On the compact nature of the most luminous ULX in the Cartwheel ring

2006-10-19

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0610586v1

Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.373:1627-1632,2006

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

6 pages; 3 figure; accepted for publication in MNRAS

Scientific paper

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.11116.x

We report the first detection of flux variability in the most luminous X-ray source in the southern ring of the Cartwheel galaxy. XMM--Newton data show that the luminosity has varied over a timescale of six months from L[0.5-10] keV \~1.3 10^{41} erg/s, consistent with the previous Chandra observation, to L[0.5-10] keV < 6.4 x10^{40} erg/s. This fact provides the first evidence that the source is compact in nature and is not a collection of individual fainter sources, such as supernova remnants. The source has been repeatedly observed at the very high luminosity level of L[0.5-10] keV ~1.3 x 10^{41} erg/s, for a period of at least 4 years before dimming at the current level. It represents then the first example of an accreting object revealed in a long lived state of extremely high luminosity.

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