Ultra Luminous X-ray sources - new distance indicators?

TL;DR

This study models three ULX sources using NuSTAR and XMM-Newton data, deriving their distances and confirming the presence of neutron stars, proposing a new method for distance measurement based on emission normalization.

Contribution

The paper introduces a model linking emission normalization to source distance, providing a novel way to estimate distances to ULXs and confirming neutron star presence.

Findings

Distances to sources match previous measurements.

Model fits data with low reduced chi-squared values.

Supports neutron star presence in ULX sources.

Abstract

In this paper we fit the NuSTAR and XMM-Newton data of three sources: NGC7793~P13, NGC5907~ULX1, and Circinus~ULX5. Our single model contains emission form non-spherical system: neutron star plus accretion disk directed towards observer. We obtained the very good fit with the reduced $\chi^2$ per degree of freedom equal 1.08 for P13, 1.01 for ULX1, and 1.14 for ULX5.The normalization of our model constrains the distance to the source. The resulting distances are $D=3.41^{+0.11}_{-0.10}$, $6.55_{-0.81}^{+0.69}$ and $2.60^{+0.05}_{-0.03}$~Mpc for P13, ULX1 and ULX5 respectively. The distances to P13 and ULX5 are in perfect agreement with previous distance measurements to their host galaxies. Our results confirm that P13, ULX1 and ULX5 may contain central hot neutron star. When the outgoing emission is computed by integration over the emitting surface and successfully fitted to the data, then the resulting model normalization is the direct distance indicator.