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

Abstract

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 , probably by means of an accretion disk2, 3. 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 hole4, 5, 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 Way6, 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.

Citation

Middleton, M. J., Miller-Jones, J. C., Markoff, S., Fender, R., Henze, M., Hurley-Walker, N., …Grainge, K. (2013). Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31. Nature, 493(7431), 187-190. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11697

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Mar 26, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 9, 2014
• Journal: Nature
• Print ISSN: 0028-0836
• Electronic ISSN: 1476-4687
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 493
• Issue: 7431
• Pages: 187-190
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11697
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1462106