NuSTAR and XMM-Newton observations of the extreme ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5907 ULX1: A Vanishing Act

TL;DR

This study reports on rapid flux variability in the ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5907 ULX1, indicating a swift increase in accretion rate and high-Eddington accretion during bright states, based on two broadband X-ray observations.

Contribution

First broadband X-ray observations capturing extreme short-term flux variability in NGC 5907 ULX1, revealing rapid accretion rate changes and high-Eddington accretion states.

Findings

Flux increased by over 2 orders of magnitude within 4 days.

Spectrum during high luminosity fits a high-Eddington accretion disk model.

Variability likely due to accretion rate changes, not obscuration.

Abstract

We present results obtained from two broadband X-ray observations of the extreme ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) NGC5907 ULX1, known to have a peak X-ray luminosity of ~5e40 erg/s. These XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations, separated by only ~4 days, revealed an extreme level of short-term flux variability. In the first epoch, NGC5907 ULX1 was undetected by NuSTAR, and only weakly detected (if at all) with XMM-Newton, while in the second NGC5907 ULX1 was clearly detected at high luminosity by both missions. This implies an increase in flux of ~2 orders of magnitude or more during this ~4 day window. We argue that this is likely due to a rapid rise in the mass accretion rate, rather than to a transition from an extremely obscured to an unobscured state. During the second epoch we observed the broadband 0.3-20.0 keV X-ray luminosity to be (1.55+/-0.06)e40 erg/s, similar to the majority of the archival X-ray observations. The broadband X-ray spectrum obtained from the second epoch is inconsistent with the low/hard accretion state observed in Galactic black hole binaries, but is well modeled with a simple accretion disk model incorporating the effects of photon advection. This strongly suggests that, when bright, NGC5907 ULX1 is a high-Eddington accretor.