The Transient Ultra-luminous X-ray Source, ULX-4, in M51

TL;DR

This study analyzes the transient ULX-4 in M51 using multi-epoch X-ray and optical data, revealing flux variability, potential optical counterparts, and possible donor star types, suggesting different accretion scenarios.

Contribution

It provides a detailed temporal and spectral analysis of ULX-4, identifying optical counterparts and proposing models for the donor star and accretion mechanism.

Findings

X-ray flux varies by two orders of magnitude within a month.

Evidence of bi-modality in flux distribution.

Possible optical counterpart is a B-type star with a 264-day periodicity.

Abstract

We present the results of a temporal and spectral analysis of the transient source ULX-4 in the galaxy M51. The data used were drawn from Chandra, XMM-Newton and Swift-XRT archives, spanning the years 2000-2019. The X-ray flux of the source is seen to vary by two orders of magnitudes within a month but a short-term variability was not observed over the time intervals of 100-2000 second in the 0.3-10 keV energy band. We find some evidence for the existence of bi-modality feature in the flux distribution of ULX-4. We identified two optical sources as possible counterparts within an error radius of 0."18 at 95% confidence level for ULX-4 based on the archival HST/ACS and HST/WFC3 data. Blackbody fits of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) indicate the spectral type to be B-type stars. One of these counterparts exhibits a low-amplitude optical periodicity of 264 days in the F606W filter; if we assume this apparent periodicity is associated with the orbital motion of the donor, then it is more likely that the donor is a red supergiant satisfying the long periodicity and accretion via Roche-lobe overflow. Consequently, the SED would then have to be interpreted as a superposition of emissions from a cold donor and a hot flow component, most likely from an accretion disk. If, on the other hand, the periodicity is super orbital in nature i.e., due to possible interactions of the compact object with a circumstellar disk, the donor could then be a Be/X star hosting a neutron star.