Discovery of the candidate off-nuclear ultrasoft hyper-luminous X-ray source 3XMM J141711.1+522541
- Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824 (United States)
- Gemini Observatory/AURA, Southern Operations Center, Casilla 603, La Serena (Chile)
- CNRS, IRAP, 9 avenue du Colonel Roche, BP 44346, F-31028 Toulouse Cedex 4 (France)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Box 870324, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, San José State University, One Washington Square, San José, CA 95192 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, MI 48824 (United States)
- MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, MIT, 70 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 (United States)
We report the discovery of an off-nuclear ultrasoft hyper-luminous X-ray source candidate 3XMM J141711.1+522541 in the inactive S0 galaxy SDSS J141711.07+522540.8 (z = 0.41827, d{sub L} = 2.3 Gpc) in the Extended Groth Strip. It is located at a projected offset of ∼1.″0 (5.2 kpc) from the nucleus of the galaxy and was serendipitously detected in five XMM-Newton observations in 2000 July. Two observations have enough counts and can be fitted with a standard thermal disk with an apparent inner disk temperature kT{sub MCD}∼0.13 keV and a 0.28–14.2 keV unabsorbed luminosity L{sub X} ∼ 4 × 10{sup 43} erg s{sup −1} in the source rest frame. The source was still detected in three Chandra observations in 2002 August, with similarly ultrasoft but fainter spectra (kT{sub MCD} ∼ 0.17 keV, L{sub X} ∼ 0.5 × 10{sup 43} erg s{sup −1}). It was not detected in later observations, including two by Chandra in 2005 October, one by XMM-Newton in 2014 January, and two by Chandra in 2014 September–October, implying a long-term flux variation factor of >14. Therefore the source could be a transient with an outburst in 2000–2002. It has a faint optical counterpart candidate, with apparent magnitudes of m{sub F606W} = 26.3 AB mag and m{sub F814W} = 25.5 AB mag in 2004 December (implying an absolute V-band magnitude of ∼−15.9 AB mag). We discuss various explanations for the source and find that it is best explained as a massive black hole (BH) embedded in the nucleus of a possibly stripped satellite galaxy, with the X-ray outburst due to tidal disruption of a surrounding star by the BH. The BH mass is ∼10{sup 5} M{sub ⊙}, assuming the peak X-ray luminosity at around the Eddington limit.
- OSTI ID:
- 22890082
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 821, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Since 2009, the country of publication for this journal is the UK.; ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Language:
- English
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