Chandra Observation of a Hyperluminous Intermediate-mass Black Hole Candidate
Abstract
Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBH, 10^2-10^5 msun) have been long sought after because they are associated with several important astrophysical processes and in tight binaries could emit gravitational waves. The best IMBH candidates are hyperluminous off-nuclear X-ray sources (HLXs) with L_X>10^41 erg/s, but very few are known. We have identified a new HLX candidate (L_X 10^43 erg/s), which is offset from the center of its candidate host galaxy (D_L=244 Mpc) by 11.6" (12.4 kpc). We request a deep (78 ks) Chandra observation of the source in Cycle 17 to measure its flux and spectral evolution while it is in the decay phase of a prolonged outburst, in order to demonstrate its IMBH nature and study the BH scale invariance problem.
- Publication:
-
Chandra Proposal
- Pub Date:
- September 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015cxo..prop.4631L