HST Monitoring Reveals a 6-day Period for an Ultraluminous X-ray Source in NGC1313

Details HST Monitoring Reveals a 6-day Period for an Ultraluminous X-ray Source in NGC1313 HST Monitoring Reveals a 6-day Period for an Ultraluminous X-ray Source in NGC1313

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21330805l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #308.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.279

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Ultraluminous X-ray sources recently discovered in nearby galaxies have X-ray luminosities of 1e39-1e41 erg/sec, and are possibly intermediate mass black holes of 1e2-1e5 solar masses. NGC1313 X-2 was among the first ultraluminous X-ray sources discovered, and has been a frequent target of X-ray and optical observations. Here we report our HST GO program to monitor its optical counterpart in a search of a period. The 20 monitoring observations over three weeks exhibited periodic modulations at the 6sigma level with a period of 6.12 +/- 0.16 day and an amplitude of 0.102 +/- 0.016 mag. The periodicity is understood as from the orbital motion of the gravitationally distorted secondary that is unevenly illuminated by the X-ray radiation from the primary accretion disk. This is the first photometric period ever discovered for a ULX counterpart. The periodicity rules out the radiation mechanism through relativistic beaming effects. Combined with the photometry, the periodicity suggests that the secondary is most likely a red giant branch star with a mass of 11 19 solar masses and a radius of 15 18 solar radii.

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