Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31
A subset of ultraluminous X-ray sources (those with luminosities of less than 1040 erg s−1; ref. 1) are thought to be powered by the accretion of gas onto black holes with masses of ~5–20 M☉, probably by means of an accretion disk. The X-ray and radio emission are coupled in such Galactic sources; t...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
Nature Publishing Group
2013
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/28286 |
| _version_ | 1848752495275278336 |
|---|---|
| author | Middleton, Matthew J. Miller-Jones, James C. A. Markoff, Sera Fender, Rob Henze, Martin Hurley-Walker, Natasha Scaife, Anna M. M. Roberts, Timothy P. Walton, Dominic Carpenter, John Macquart, Jean-Pierre Bower, Geoffrey C. Gurwell, Mark Pietsch, Wolfgang Haberl, Frank Harris, Jonathan Daniel, Michael Miah, Junayd Done, Chris Morgan, John S. Dickinson, Hugh Charles, Phil Burwitz, Vadim Della Valle, Massimo Freyberg, Michael Greiner, Jochen Hernanz, Margarita Hartmann, Dieter H. Hatzidimitriou, Despina Riffeser, Arno Sala, Gloria Seitz, Stella Reig, Pablo Rau, Arne Orio, Marina Titterington, David Grainge, Keith |
| author_facet | Middleton, Matthew J. Miller-Jones, James C. A. Markoff, Sera Fender, Rob Henze, Martin Hurley-Walker, Natasha Scaife, Anna M. M. Roberts, Timothy P. Walton, Dominic Carpenter, John Macquart, Jean-Pierre Bower, Geoffrey C. Gurwell, Mark Pietsch, Wolfgang Haberl, Frank Harris, Jonathan Daniel, Michael Miah, Junayd Done, Chris Morgan, John S. Dickinson, Hugh Charles, Phil Burwitz, Vadim Della Valle, Massimo Freyberg, Michael Greiner, Jochen Hernanz, Margarita Hartmann, Dieter H. Hatzidimitriou, Despina Riffeser, Arno Sala, Gloria Seitz, Stella Reig, Pablo Rau, Arne Orio, Marina Titterington, David Grainge, Keith |
| author_sort | Middleton, Matthew J. |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | A subset of ultraluminous X-ray sources (those with luminosities of less than 1040 erg s−1; ref. 1) are thought to be powered by the accretion of gas onto black holes with masses of ~5–20 M☉, probably by means of an accretion disk. The X-ray and radio emission are coupled in such Galactic sources; the radio emission originates in a relativistic jet thought to be launched from the innermost regions near the black hole, with the most powerful emission occurring when the rate of infalling matter approaches a theoretical maximum (the Eddington limit). Only four such maximal sources are known in the Milky Way, and the absorption of soft X-rays in the interstellar medium hinders the determination of the causal sequence of events that leads to the ejection of the jet. Here we report radio and X-ray observations of a bright new X-ray source in the nearby galaxy M 31, whose peak luminosity exceeded 1039 erg s−1. The radio luminosity is extremely high and shows variability on a timescale of tens of minutes, arguing that the source is highly compact and powered by accretion close to the Eddington limit onto a black hole of stellar mass. Continued radio and X-ray monitoring of such sources should reveal the causal relationship between the accretion flow and the powerful jet emission. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T08:09:32Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-28286 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T08:09:32Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-282862017-09-13T15:19:08Z Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31 Middleton, Matthew J. Miller-Jones, James C. A. Markoff, Sera Fender, Rob Henze, Martin Hurley-Walker, Natasha Scaife, Anna M. M. Roberts, Timothy P. Walton, Dominic Carpenter, John Macquart, Jean-Pierre Bower, Geoffrey C. Gurwell, Mark Pietsch, Wolfgang Haberl, Frank Harris, Jonathan Daniel, Michael Miah, Junayd Done, Chris Morgan, John S. Dickinson, Hugh Charles, Phil Burwitz, Vadim Della Valle, Massimo Freyberg, Michael Greiner, Jochen Hernanz, Margarita Hartmann, Dieter H. Hatzidimitriou, Despina Riffeser, Arno Sala, Gloria Seitz, Stella Reig, Pablo Rau, Arne Orio, Marina Titterington, David Grainge, Keith high-energy astrophysics A subset of ultraluminous X-ray sources (those with luminosities of less than 1040 erg s−1; ref. 1) are thought to be powered by the accretion of gas onto black holes with masses of ~5–20 M☉, probably by means of an accretion disk. The X-ray and radio emission are coupled in such Galactic sources; the radio emission originates in a relativistic jet thought to be launched from the innermost regions near the black hole, with the most powerful emission occurring when the rate of infalling matter approaches a theoretical maximum (the Eddington limit). Only four such maximal sources are known in the Milky Way, and the absorption of soft X-rays in the interstellar medium hinders the determination of the causal sequence of events that leads to the ejection of the jet. Here we report radio and X-ray observations of a bright new X-ray source in the nearby galaxy M 31, whose peak luminosity exceeded 1039 erg s−1. The radio luminosity is extremely high and shows variability on a timescale of tens of minutes, arguing that the source is highly compact and powered by accretion close to the Eddington limit onto a black hole of stellar mass. Continued radio and X-ray monitoring of such sources should reveal the causal relationship between the accretion flow and the powerful jet emission. 2013 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/28286 10.1038/nature11697 Nature Publishing Group fulltext |
| spellingShingle | high-energy astrophysics Middleton, Matthew J. Miller-Jones, James C. A. Markoff, Sera Fender, Rob Henze, Martin Hurley-Walker, Natasha Scaife, Anna M. M. Roberts, Timothy P. Walton, Dominic Carpenter, John Macquart, Jean-Pierre Bower, Geoffrey C. Gurwell, Mark Pietsch, Wolfgang Haberl, Frank Harris, Jonathan Daniel, Michael Miah, Junayd Done, Chris Morgan, John S. Dickinson, Hugh Charles, Phil Burwitz, Vadim Della Valle, Massimo Freyberg, Michael Greiner, Jochen Hernanz, Margarita Hartmann, Dieter H. Hatzidimitriou, Despina Riffeser, Arno Sala, Gloria Seitz, Stella Reig, Pablo Rau, Arne Orio, Marina Titterington, David Grainge, Keith Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31 |
| title | Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31 |
| title_full | Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31 |
| title_fullStr | Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31 |
| title_short | Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31 |
| title_sort | bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in m 31 |
| topic | high-energy astrophysics |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/28286 |