ULTRALUMINOUS X-RAY SOURCES IN ARP 147

Journal Article · Fri Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/721/2/1348· OSTI ID:21464778

Rappaport, S; Steinhorn, B ^[1]; Levine, A ^[2]; Pooley, D ^[3]

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1. 37-602B, M.I.T. Department of Physics and Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, 70 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)
2. 37-575 M.I.T. Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, 70 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)
3. Eureka Scientific, 5248 Valley View Road El Sobrante, CA 94803-3435 (United States)

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory was used to image the collisional ring galaxy Arp 147 for 42 ks. We detect nine X-ray sources with luminosities in the range of (1.4-7) x 10{sup 39} erg s{sup -1} (assuming that the sources emit isotropically) in or near the blue knots of star formation associated with the ring. A source with an X-ray luminosity of 1.4 x 10{sup 40} erg s{sup -1} is detected in the nuclear region of the intruder galaxy. X-ray sources associated with a foreground star and a background quasar are used to improve the registration of the X-ray image with respect to Hubble Space Telescope (HST) high-resolution optical images. The intruder galaxy, which apparently contained little gas before the collision, shows no X-ray sources other than the one in the nuclear bulge which may be a poorly fed supermassive black hole. These observations confirm the conventional wisdom that collisions of gas-rich galaxies trigger large rates of star formation which, in turn, generate substantial numbers of X-ray sources, some of which have luminosities above the Eddington limit for accreting stellar-mass black holes (i.e., ultraluminous X-ray sources, 'ULXs'). We also utilize archival Spitzer and Galex data to help constrain the current star formation rate in Arp 147 to {approx}7 M{sub sun} yr{sup -1}. All of these results, coupled with binary evolution models for ULXs, allow us to tentatively conclude that the most intense star formation may have ended some 15 Myr in the past.

• OSTI ID: 21464778
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 721, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/721/2/1348; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BLACK HOLES
COSMIC X-RAY SOURCES
GALACTIC EVOLUTION
GALAXIES
GALAXY NUCLEI
IMAGES
LUMINOSITY
QUASARS
STAR EVOLUTION
STARS
TELESCOPES
X RADIATION
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
COSMIC RAY SOURCES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
EVOLUTION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATIONS