The high energy X-ray probe (HEX-P): studying extreme accretion with ultraluminous X-ray sources
The high energy X-ray probe (HEX-P): studying extreme accretion with ultraluminous X-ray sources
Introduction: ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) represent an extreme class of accreting compact objects: from the identification of some of the accretors as neutron stars to the detection of powerful winds travelling at 0.1–0.2 c, the increasing evidence points towards ULXs harbouring stellar-mass compact objects undergoing highly super-Eddington accretion. Measuring their intrinsic properties, such as the accretion rate onto the compact object, the outflow rate, the masses of accretor/companion-hence their progenitors, lifetimes, and future evolution-is challenging due to ULXs being mostly extragalactic and in crowded fields. Yet ULXs represent our best opportunity to understand super-Eddington accretion physics and the paths through binary evolution to eventual double compact object binaries and gravitational-wave sources.
Methods: through a combination of end-to-end and single-source simulations, we investigate the ability of HEX-P to study ULXs in the context of their host galaxies and compare it to XMM-Newton and NuSTAR, the current instruments with the most similar capabilities.
Results: HEX-P’s higher sensitivity, which is driven by its narrow point-spread function and low background, allows it to detect pulsations and broad spectral features from ULXs better than XMM-Newton and NuSTAR.
Discussion: we describe the value of HEX-P in understanding ULXs and their associated key physics, through a combination of broadband sensitivity, timing resolution, and angular resolution, which make the mission ideal for pulsation detection and low-background, broadband spectral studies.
astro-ph.HE, astro-ph.IM
Bachetti, Matteo
6a6bb4d1-0e16-4284-a923-16115c6d3c9d
Middleton, Matthew J.
f91b89d9-fd2e-42ec-aa99-1249f08a52ad
Pinto, Ciro
9d6e45cf-4900-42c4-8ca0-134c0af99af2
Bachetti, Matteo
6a6bb4d1-0e16-4284-a923-16115c6d3c9d
Middleton, Matthew J.
f91b89d9-fd2e-42ec-aa99-1249f08a52ad
Pinto, Ciro
9d6e45cf-4900-42c4-8ca0-134c0af99af2
Bachetti, Matteo, Middleton, Matthew J. and Pinto, Ciro
,
et al.
(2023)
The high energy X-ray probe (HEX-P): studying extreme accretion with ultraluminous X-ray sources.
Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, 10, [1289432].
(doi:10.48550/arXiv.2311.04733).
Abstract
Introduction: ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) represent an extreme class of accreting compact objects: from the identification of some of the accretors as neutron stars to the detection of powerful winds travelling at 0.1–0.2 c, the increasing evidence points towards ULXs harbouring stellar-mass compact objects undergoing highly super-Eddington accretion. Measuring their intrinsic properties, such as the accretion rate onto the compact object, the outflow rate, the masses of accretor/companion-hence their progenitors, lifetimes, and future evolution-is challenging due to ULXs being mostly extragalactic and in crowded fields. Yet ULXs represent our best opportunity to understand super-Eddington accretion physics and the paths through binary evolution to eventual double compact object binaries and gravitational-wave sources.
Methods: through a combination of end-to-end and single-source simulations, we investigate the ability of HEX-P to study ULXs in the context of their host galaxies and compare it to XMM-Newton and NuSTAR, the current instruments with the most similar capabilities.
Results: HEX-P’s higher sensitivity, which is driven by its narrow point-spread function and low background, allows it to detect pulsations and broad spectral features from ULXs better than XMM-Newton and NuSTAR.
Discussion: we describe the value of HEX-P in understanding ULXs and their associated key physics, through a combination of broadband sensitivity, timing resolution, and angular resolution, which make the mission ideal for pulsation detection and low-background, broadband spectral studies.
Text
2311.04733v2
- Author's Original
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fspas-10-1289432
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 26 October 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 27 November 2023
Additional Information:
Funding: the author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. MaB was funded in part by PRIN TEC INAF 2019 “SpecTemPolar!—Timing analysis in the era of high-throughput photon detectors.” TR acknowledges funding from STFC as part of the consolidated grants ST/T000244/1 and ST/X001075/1. GV acknowledges support by Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.) under the “3rd Call for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to support Postdoctoral Researchers” through the project ASTRAPE (Project ID 7802). The work of DS was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA.
Keywords:
astro-ph.HE, astro-ph.IM
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 487456
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/487456
ISSN: 2296-987X
PURE UUID: 1444bfc6-20fe-405c-9415-c1a9449cc525
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Date deposited: 20 Feb 2024 18:18
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 07:42
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Author:
Matteo Bachetti
Author:
Ciro Pinto
Corporate Author: et al.
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