Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Bachetti, Matteo
• Middleton, Matthew J.
• Pinto, Ciro
• Gúrpide, Andrés
• Walton, Dominic J.
• Brightman, Murray
• Lehmer, Bret
• Roberts, Timothy P.
• Vasilopoulos, Georgios
• Alford, Jason
• Amato, Roberta
• Ambrosi, Elena
• Dai, Lixin
• Earnshaw, Hannah P.
• El Byad, Hamza
• García, Javier A.
• Luca Israel, Gian
• Jaodand, Amruta
• Madsen, Kristin
• Maitra, Chandreyee
• Mandel, Shifra
• Mori, Kaya
• Pintore, Fabio
• Ohsuga, Ken
• Pilia, Maura
• Stern, Daniel
• Younes, George
• Wolter, Anna

Titel

The high energy X-ray probe (HEX-P): studying extreme accretion with ultraluminous X-ray sources

Ist Teil von

• Frontiers in astronomy and space sciences, 2023-11, Vol.10

Ort / Verlag

Frontiers Media S.A

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek - Frei zugängliche E-Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• 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.