Ultraluminous X-ray Sources

The first black hole was observed almost 50 years ago, ∼ 1 year after Sco X-1 (although its nature was not confirmed for ∼ 11 years). Observations of black holes have been ongoing since then, falling in to two distinct categories; stellar-mass (sMBHs; 3 - 80 M_{⊙}) and super-massive black holes (10^6 - 10^9 M_⊙). The missing link between these two types, intermediate mass black holes, has been the target of many searches due to their cosmological implications. Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) have been proposed to harbor such objects, but recent observational evidence has strongly suggested that the majority contain sMBHs. However, a handful of the brightest ULXs are so luminous that they defy this explanation. Here we will discuss the nature of both standard ULXs and this new bright subgroup of this population.