The Nature of the mHz X-ray QPOs from the Ultraluminous X-ray Source M82 X-1: Timing-Spectral (anti)-correlation?
Abstract
We have analyzed all archival XMM-Newton observations of the ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) M82 X-1 in order to search for a correlation between its mHz quasiperiodic oscillation (QPO) frequency and energy spectral power-law index. These quantities are known to correlate in stellar mass black holes (StMBHs) exhibiting so-called Type-C QPOs. The detection of a similar relation in M82 X-1 would strengthen the identification of its mHz QPOs as Type-C and thus enable more reliable mass estimates by scaling of the QPO frequencies in X-1 to those of Type-C QPOs in StMBHs of known mass. We used surface brightness modeling to estimate the count rates produced by X-1 and a nearby (5'') bright source that can contribute substantial flux in XMM-Newton's 15'' (HPD) beam. We thus identify the observations in which M82 X-1 is at least as bright as the nearby source. In these observations we detect mHz QPOs with centroid frequencies spanning the range from 36 mHz to 210 mHz (the lowest and the highest yet reported from X-1). We model the 3-10 keV spectrum and find that the power-law index changes significantly from 1.7 - 2.2 during these observations. With all observations included we find evidence for an anti-correlation between the centroid frequency of the mHz QPOs and the power-law index. The value of the Pearson's correlation coefficient is -0.95. While such an anti-correlation is observed in StMBHs at high Type-C QPO frequencies (5-15 Hz), the frequency range over which it holds in StMBHs is significantly smaller (factor of 1-3) than the QPO range now reported here for X-1, which varies over a factor of 5.8 (36-210 mHz). However, we note that the correlation hinges on the observation with the lowest inferred energy spectral index and for which the fitted count rate ratio of X-1 to the nearby source is 1.1. So the implied anti-correlation needs to be confirmed with either less ``contaminated" observations or higher angular resolution spectral measurements made in tandem with QPO detections. Nevertheless, our results demonstrate that the wide range of QPO frequencies now seen in X-1 should eventually enable a careful exploration of the timing - spectral correlations needed to test the Type-C identification.
- Publication:
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AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division #13
- Pub Date:
- April 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013HEAD...1312643R