Searching for X-ray sources in nearby late-type galaxies with low-star formation rates

Late-type non-starburst galaxies have been shown to contain X-ray emitting objects, some being ultraluminous X-ray sources. We report on XMM-Newton observations of 11 nearby, late-type galaxies previously observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in order to find such objects. We found 18 X-ray sources in or near the optical extent of the galaxies, most being point-like. If associated with the corresponding galaxies, the source luminosities range from 2 × 10³⁷ erg s^-1 to 6 × 10³⁹ erg s^-1. We found one ultraluminous X-ray source, which is in the galaxy IC 5052, and one source coincident with the galaxy IC 4662 with a blackbody temperature of 0.166 ± 0.015 keV that could be a quasi-soft source or a quiescent neutron star X-ray binary in the Milky Way. One X-ray source, XMMU J205206.0-691316, is extended and coincident with a galaxy cluster visible on an HST image. The X-ray spectrum of the cluster reveals a redshift of z = 0.25 ± 0.02 and a temperature of 3.6±0.4 keV. The redshift was mainly determined by a cluster of Fe XXIV lines between the observed energy range 0.8 - 1.0 keV.