Crossing the Eddington limit: examining disk spectra at high accretion rates

TL;DR

This study shows that broadened disk spectra, previously associated with super-Eddington accretion in ULXs, are also present in black hole binaries at lower luminosities, suggesting a common physical mechanism near the Eddington limit.

Contribution

It demonstrates that broadened disk spectra occur at moderate Eddington ratios in black hole binaries, challenging the idea they only indicate super-Eddington accretion.

Findings

Broadened disk spectra are observed at lower luminosities in black hole binaries.

Such spectra may be produced near the Eddington limit with slim, advective disks.

Additional physical mechanisms are needed to explain broad spectra at low Eddington ratios.

Abstract

The faintest ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs), those with 0.3-10 keV luminosities 1 < L_X/10^39 < 3 erg s^-1, tend to have X-ray spectra that are disk-like but broader than expected for thin accretion disks. These `broadened disk' spectra are thought to indicate near- or mildly super-Eddington accretion onto stellar remnant black holes. Here we report that a sample of bright thermal-dominant black hole binaries, which have Eddington ratios constrained to moderate values, also show broadened disk spectra in the 0.3-10 keV band at an order of magnitude lower luminosities. This broadening would be missed in studies that only look above ~2 keV. While this may suggest that broadened disk ULXs could be powered by accretion onto massive stellar remnant black holes with close to maximal spin, we argue in favor of a scenario where they are at close to the Eddington luminosity, such that radiation pressure would be expected to result in geometrically slim, advective accretion disks. However, this implies that an additional physical mechanism is required to produce the observed broad spectra at low Eddington ratios.