Bibcode
Tao, Lian; Feng, Hua; Grisé, Fabien; Kaaret, Philip
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 737, Issue 2, article id. 81 (2011).
Advertised on:
8
2011
Journal
Citations
99
Refereed citations
86
Description
Using archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging data, we report the
multiband photometric properties of 13 ultraluminous X-ray sources
(ULXs) that have a unique compact optical counterpart. Both magnitude
and color variation are detected at timescales of days to years. The
optical color, variability, and X-ray to optical flux ratio indicate
that the optical emission of most ULXs is dominated by X-ray
reprocessing on the disk, similar to that of low-mass X-ray binaries.
For most sources, the optical spectrum is a power law, F
νvpropνα with α in the range
1.0-2.0 and the optically emitting region has a size on the order of
1012 cm. Exceptions are NGC 2403 X-1 and M83 IXO 82, which
show optical spectra consistent with direct emission from a standard
thin disk, M101 ULX-1 and M81 ULS1, which have X-ray to optical flux
ratios more similar to high-mass X-ray binaries, and IC 342 X-1, in
which the optical light may be dominated by the companion star.
Inconsistent extinction between the optical counterpart of NGC 5204 X-1
and the nearby optical nebulae suggests that they may be unrelated.