The X-Ray Globular Cluster Population in NGC 1399

By L. Angelini, M. Loewenstein, R. Mushotzky. 2001

146 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We report on the Chandra observations of the elliptical galaxy NGC 1399, concentrating on the X-ray sources identified with globular clusters (GCs). A large fraction of the 2-10 keV X-ray emission in the 8′ × 8′ Chandra image is resolved into point sources with luminosities ≥5 × 1037 ergs s-1. These sources are most likely low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). In a region imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, about 70% of the X-ray sources are located within GCs. This association suggests that in giant elliptical galaxies luminous X-ray binaries preferentially form in GCs. Many of the GC sources have super-Eddington luminosities (for an accreting neutron star), and their average luminosity is higher than the non-GC sources. The X-ray spectral properties of both GC and non-GC sources are similar to those of LMXBs in our Galaxy. Two of the brightest sources, one of which is in a GC, have an ultrasoft spectrum, similar to that seen in the high state of black hole candidates. The "apparent" super-Eddington luminosity in many cases may be due to multiple LMXB systems within individual GCs but with some of the most extremely luminous systems containing massive black holes.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e148db53257146dd8bd0b74e7bddf3f0a78d8083

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. D. Merritt
2. L. Ferrarese
3. Luis C. Ho
4. Alister W. Graham
5. G. Fabbiano
6. J. Kormendy
7. E. Peng
8. P. Côté

Citations in the corpus

• The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. I. Introduction to the Survey (2004, background): “…with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory have shown that many early-type galaxies are surrounded by numerous low-mass X-ray binaries, roughly half of which are associated with GCs (e.g., Sarazin et al. 2001; Angelini et al. 2001; Maccarone et al. 2003; Jordán et al. 2004a, hereafter Paper III).”
• X-Ray Luminosity Function and Total Luminosity of Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries in Early-Type Galaxies (2003, background): “With its sub-arcsecond spatial resolution and unprecedented sensitivity (Weisskopf et al. 2000), Chandra has provided incontrovertible proof of the existence of populations of LMXBs in all E and S0 galaxies (e.g., Sarazin et al. 2001; Angelini et al. 2001; Kim and Fabbiano 2003, hereafter KF03).”
• X-Ray Spectral Properties of Low-Mass X-Ray Binaries in Nearby Galaxies (2002, methodology): “For NGC 1399 and NGC 4472, we used the globular cluster–X-ray source identifications of Angelini et al. (2001) and Kundu et 7 al.”
• Intermediate - mass black holes (2003, background): “These include associations with young stellar clusters (Zezas et al. 2002) or globular clusters (Angelini et al. 2001); the possible identification of a stellar companion in M81 (Liu et al. 2002); and the optical nebular emission in Holmberg II that may suggest quasi-isotropic emission (Pakull &…”
• The Milky Way in X-rays for an outside observer (2001, unknown): “M 31 (Di Stefano et al. 2002) and NGC 1399 (Angelini et al. 2001).”