A new, clean catalogue of extragalactic non-nuclear X-ray sources in nearby galaxies
A new, clean catalogue of extragalactic non-nuclear X-ray sources in nearby galaxies
We have created a new, clean catalogue of extragalactic non-nuclear X-ray sources by correlating the 3XMM-DR4 data release of the XMM-Newton Serendipitous Source Catalogue with the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies and the Catalogue of Neighbouring Galaxies, using an improved version of the method presented in Walton et al. Our catalogue contains 1314 sources, of which 384 are candidate ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). The resulting catalogue improves upon previous catalogues in its handling of spurious detections by taking into account XMM-Newton quality flags. We estimate the contamination of ULXs by background sources to be 24 per cent. We define a 'complete' subsample as those ULXs in galaxies for which the sensitivity limit is below 10 39 erg s -1 and use it to examine the hardness ratio properties between ULX and non-ULX sources, and ULXs in different classes of host galaxy. We find that ULXs have a similar hardness ratio distribution to lower luminosity sources, consistent with previous studies. We also find that ULXs in spiral and elliptical host galaxies have similar distributions to each other independent of host galaxy morphology, however, our results do support previous indications that the population of ULXs is more luminous in star-forming host galaxies than in non-star-forming galaxies. Our catalogue contains further interesting subpopulations for future study, including Eddington Threshold sources and highly variable ULXs. We also examine the highest luminosity (L X > 5 × 10 40 erg s -1) ULXs in our catalogue in search of intermediate-mass black hole candidates, and find nine new possible candidates.
black hole physics, catalogues, X-rays: binaries, X-rays: general
5554-5573
Earnshaw, H. P.
5fd81de0-79fa-4e5a-9297-5812a8f6787e
Roberts, T. P.
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Middleton, M. J.
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Walton, D. J.
3cf6ea78-7dd5-4765-8c09-ba2af76f11e7
Mateos, S.
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11 March 2019
Earnshaw, H. P.
5fd81de0-79fa-4e5a-9297-5812a8f6787e
Roberts, T. P.
c4f83289-5e07-43c8-9c3e-2a4b46c73c05
Middleton, M. J.
f91b89d9-fd2e-42ec-aa99-1249f08a52ad
Walton, D. J.
3cf6ea78-7dd5-4765-8c09-ba2af76f11e7
Mateos, S.
6e94d6d1-3e8f-4392-bafa-bc8c3ced3da7
Earnshaw, H. P., Roberts, T. P., Middleton, M. J., Walton, D. J. and Mateos, S.
(2019)
A new, clean catalogue of extragalactic non-nuclear X-ray sources in nearby galaxies.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 483 (4), .
(doi:10.1093/mnras/sty3403).
Abstract
We have created a new, clean catalogue of extragalactic non-nuclear X-ray sources by correlating the 3XMM-DR4 data release of the XMM-Newton Serendipitous Source Catalogue with the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies and the Catalogue of Neighbouring Galaxies, using an improved version of the method presented in Walton et al. Our catalogue contains 1314 sources, of which 384 are candidate ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). The resulting catalogue improves upon previous catalogues in its handling of spurious detections by taking into account XMM-Newton quality flags. We estimate the contamination of ULXs by background sources to be 24 per cent. We define a 'complete' subsample as those ULXs in galaxies for which the sensitivity limit is below 10 39 erg s -1 and use it to examine the hardness ratio properties between ULX and non-ULX sources, and ULXs in different classes of host galaxy. We find that ULXs have a similar hardness ratio distribution to lower luminosity sources, consistent with previous studies. We also find that ULXs in spiral and elliptical host galaxies have similar distributions to each other independent of host galaxy morphology, however, our results do support previous indications that the population of ULXs is more luminous in star-forming host galaxies than in non-star-forming galaxies. Our catalogue contains further interesting subpopulations for future study, including Eddington Threshold sources and highly variable ULXs. We also examine the highest luminosity (L X > 5 × 10 40 erg s -1) ULXs in our catalogue in search of intermediate-mass black hole candidates, and find nine new possible candidates.
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sty3403
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Accepted/In Press date: 10 December 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 22 December 2018
Published date: 11 March 2019
Additional Information:
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2018 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
black hole physics, catalogues, X-rays: binaries, X-rays: general
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 429019
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/429019
ISSN: 1365-2966
PURE UUID: ffae5cbe-4f56-43f4-8d3b-dad61f75f4e5
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Date deposited: 19 Mar 2019 17:30
Last modified: 09 Apr 2025 18:27
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Contributors
Author:
H. P. Earnshaw
Author:
T. P. Roberts
Author:
D. J. Walton
Author:
S. Mateos
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