The Eclipsing ULX in NGC 3379

Details The Eclipsing ULX in NGC 3379 The Eclipsing ULX in NGC 3379

2006-03-20

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603532v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Submitted to ApJ, 16 pages, 3 color figures

Scientific paper

10.1086/507018

We report recent Chandra observations of the ULX in the elliptical galaxy NGC3379 that clearly detect two flux variability cycles. Comparing these data with the Chandra observation of ~5yr ago, we measure a flux modulation with a period of ~12.6hr. Moreover, we find that the emission undergoes a correlated spectral modulation, becoming softer at low flux. We argue that our results establish this source as a ULX binary in NGC3379. Given the old stellar population of this galaxy, the ULX is likely to be a soft transient, however historical X-ray sampling suggests that the current on phase has lasted ~10yr. We discuss our results in terms of ADC and wind-feedback models. We constrain the donor mass and orbital period at the onset of mass transfer within 1.15-1.4M and 12.5-16hr, respectively. The duration of the mass-transfer phase so far is probably ~1Gyr and the binary has been a soft X-ray transient throughout this time. These constraints are insensitive to the mass of the accretor.

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