Measuring the black hole mass in Ultraluminous X-ray Sources with the X-ray Scaling Method
Abstract
The black hole mass is a crucial parameter to shed light on the physics of accretion. While the presence of stellar mass black holes (sMBHs) in binary systems and supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the center of galaxies is widely accepted, the very existence of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) is still a matter of debate. It has been suggested that this type of black holes within the mass range of MBH=10^2-10^5 Msun may reside in Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) which are very bright off nuclear X-ray sources. Recently, a new method to constrain the mass of BH systems, based solely on X-ray data, was successfully used for sMBHs and SMBHs. Since the X-ray emission is thought to be produced by the same process (Comptonization) in all accretion objects, in principle, this method can be applied to estimate the mass of black holes in ULXs. We have carried out a systemic analysis of a sample of 43 ULXs with multiple X-ray observations and applied this novel method. Our preliminary results suggest that ~70% of the sample harbor IMBHs and indicates a good agreement with those derived with different methods present in the literature.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #223
- Pub Date:
- January 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014AAS...22344312J