Ultra Luminous X-ray Sources

Ultra Luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are X-ray bright objects that are not coincident with the central nucleus of the host galaxy and which have luminosities that exceed the Eddington limit for a stellar mass black hole, typically L > 3 × 10^{39} erg s^{-1} for a black hole of 20 M_⊙. The nature of these objects is still unclear. However, it is possible that these sources do not form a single class of objects. Many ULXs may house stellar mass black holes accreting at super-Eddington rates, even if the physical mechanism for such high accretion rates is still not understood. Some ULXs may contain intermediate mass black holes (∼1 × 10^{2} - ∼1 × 10^{5} M_⊙). These elusive black holes are thought to be the building blocks of the more massive supermassive black holes, observed at the centre of many galaxies. Other ULXs may not be accreting black holes at all. Recent evidence for the different types of ULXs is presented in this paper.