Populations of super-soft X-ray sources in galaxies of different morphological types

TL;DR

This study analyzes populations of super-soft X-ray sources across different galaxy types, identifying their characteristics, prevalence, and origins, with implications for understanding white dwarf accretion and supernova remnants.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of super-soft X-ray sources in various galaxy types, distinguishing between populations and confirming their origins, especially the link to supernova remnants.

Findings

Super-soft sources are more abundant in spiral galaxies.

Most quasi-soft sources are confirmed as supernova remnants.

Population of super-soft sources is significantly lower in early-type galaxies.

Abstract

We study populations of soft and super-soft X-ray sources in nearby galaxies of various morphological types with the special emphasis on characterizing populations of stable nuclear burning accreting WDs. Analysing the content of Chandra archive we assembled a sample of nearby galaxies suitable for studying populations of super-soft X-ray sources. Our sample includes 4 spiral galaxies, 2 lenticular galaxies and 3 ellipticals with stellar mass exceeding $10^{10}$ $M_\odot$ and X-ray sensitivity of the order of a ${\rm few}\times 10^{36}$ erg/s. We used combination of hardness ratio and median energy to pre-select X-ray sources with soft spectra, and temperature - X-ray luminosity diagram to identify super-soft X-ray sources - likely nuclear burning accreting white dwarfs. For spiral galaxies, there is a distinct and rare population of super-soft sources, largely detached from the rest of sources on the $kT_{bb}-L_X$ plane. The boundary between these sources and the much more numerous population of harder (but still soft) sources is consistent with the boundary of stable hydrogen burning on the white dwarf surface. Combined spectrum of soft sources located outside this boundary, shows clear emission lines of Mg and S, which equivalent width is similar to that in the combined spectrum of a large number of confirmed supernova remnants in M83. This confirms earlier suggestions that the vast majority of so called quasi-soft sources are supernova remnants. In early-type galaxies, populations of super-soft sources are about a factor of $\approx 8$ less abundant, in broad agreement with the population synthesis calculations. Specific frequencies of super-soft sources are: (2.08$\pm$0.46)$\times10^{-10}$ M$_{\odot}^{-1}$ in spiral galaxies and (2.47$\pm$1.34)$\times10^{-11}$ M$_{\odot}^{-1}$ in lenticular and elliptical galaxies, with the ratio of the latter to the former of $0.12\pm0.05$.