Publication Date:
2012-12-14
Description:
A subset of ultraluminous X-ray sources (those with luminosities of less than 10(40) erg s(-1); ref. 1) are thought to be powered by the accretion of gas onto black holes with masses of approximately 5-20M cicled dot, probably by means of an accretion disk. The X-ray and radio emission are coupled in such Galactic sources; the radio emission originates in a relativistic jet thought to be launched from the innermost regions near the black hole, with the most powerful emission occurring when the rate of infalling matter approaches a theoretical maximum (the Eddington limit). Only four such maximal sources are known in the Milky Way, and the absorption of soft X-rays in the interstellar medium hinders the determination of the causal sequence of events that leads to the ejection of the jet. Here we report radio and X-ray observations of a bright new X-ray source in the nearby galaxy M 31, whose peak luminosity exceeded 10(39) erg s(-1). The radio luminosity is extremely high and shows variability on a timescale of tens of minutes, arguing that the source is highly compact and powered by accretion close to the Eddington limit onto a black hole of stellar mass. Continued radio and X-ray monitoring of such sources should reveal the causal relationship between the accretion flow and the powerful jet emission.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Middleton, Matthew J -- Miller-Jones, James C A -- Markoff, Sera -- Fender, Rob -- Henze, Martin -- Hurley-Walker, Natasha -- Scaife, Anna M M -- Roberts, Timothy P -- Walton, Dominic -- Carpenter, John -- Macquart, Jean-Pierre -- Bower, Geoffrey C -- Gurwell, Mark -- Pietsch, Wolfgang -- Haberl, Frank -- Harris, Jonathan -- Daniel, Michael -- Miah, Junayd -- Done, Chris -- Morgan, John S -- Dickinson, Hugh -- Charles, Phil -- Burwitz, Vadim -- Della Valle, Massimo -- Freyberg, Michael -- Greiner, Jochen -- Hernanz, Margarita -- Hartmann, Dieter H -- Hatzidimitriou, Despina -- Riffeser, Arno -- Sala, Gloria -- Seitz, Stella -- Reig, Pablo -- Rau, Arne -- Orio, Marina -- Titterington, David -- Grainge, Keith -- England -- Nature. 2013 Jan 10;493(7431):187-90. doi: 10.1038/nature11697. Epub 2012 Dec 12.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Physics Department, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, UK. m.j.middleton@durham.ac.uk〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23235823" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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