A New Characterization of the Compton Process in the ULX Spectra

TL;DR

This study introduces a unified spectral model for ULX sources combining multi-color disk emission and thermal Comptonization, explaining different states via two new parameters and supporting the presence of high-mass black holes.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel spectral characterization of ULX sources using parameters Q and F, unifying their spectral states and providing evidence for high-mass black holes.

Findings

The model explains all ULX spectra with a cool disk and thick corona.

Distinct Q and F values differentiate spectral states.

Results support the presence of high-mass black holes in ULXs.

Abstract

Attempts were made to construct a unified description of the spectra of ULX (Ultra Luminous X-ray source) objects, including their Power-Law (PL) state and Disk-like state. Among spectral models proposed to explain either state, the present work adopts the one which combines multi-color disk (MCD) emission and its thermal Comptonization (THC). This model was applied to several datasets of ULXs obtained by Suzaku, XMM-Newton, and Nustar. The model well explains all the spectra, regardless of the spectral states, in terms of a cool disk (inner radius temperature of 0.2-0.5 keV) and a cool thick (electron temperature of 1-3 keV, and optical thickness ~10) corona. The fit results can be characterized by two new parameters. One is Q (defined as the electron temerature divided by the inner radius temperature) which describes balance between the Compton cooling and gravitational heating of the coronal electrons, while the other is F, namely, the covering fraction of the MCD by the corona. Here, F is calculated from the percentage of the directly-visible disk luminosity in the total radiation. Then, the PL-state spectra have been found to show Q~10 and F~0.5, while those of the Disk-like state Q~3 and F~1. Thus, the two states are clearly separated in terms of Q and F. The obtained results are employed to argue for their interpretation in terms of high-mass (several tens to several hundreds solar masses) black holes.