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        Young Black Hole and Neutron Star Systems in the Nearby Star-forming Galaxy M33: The NuSTAR View

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        Author
        Yang, Jun
        Wik, Daniel R.
        Lehmer, Bret D.
        West, Lacey A.
        Williams, Benjamin F.
        Maccarone, Thomas J.
        Ptak, Andrew
        Yukita, Mihoko
        Vulic, Neven
        Walton, Dominic J.
        Garofali, Kristen
        Antoniou, Vallia
        Attention
        2299/25513
        Abstract
        We can learn about the formation and evolution of compact objects, such as neutron stars and black holes (BHs), by studying the X-ray emission from accreting systems in nearby star-forming galaxies. The hard (E > 10 keV) X-ray emission in particular allows strong discrimination among the accretion states and compact object types. We conducted a NuSTAR survey (∼600 ks) of the Local Group spiral galaxy M33 to study the distribution of X-ray binary (XRB) accretors in an actively star-forming environment. We constructed color–intensity and color–color diagrams to infer XRB accretion states. Using these diagrams, we have classified 28 X-ray sources in M33 by comparing their hard X-ray colors to those of known systems. Four sources lie in the parameter space occupied by X-ray pulsars, while 8, 10, and 4 sources lie in the parameter space occupied by BHs in the hard, intermediate, and soft states, respectively. The known ultraluminous X-ray source M33 X-8 is also found to be consistent with that source type. Some sources overlap within the Z/Atoll sources due to the overlap of the two categories of BHs and Z/Atoll sources. In contrast to a similar NuSTAR survey of M31 (with a low-mass XRB-dominant population), the source population in M33 is dominated by high-mass XRBs (HMXBs), allowing the study of a very different population with similar sensitivity due to the galaxy's similar distance. This characterization of a population of HMXB accretion states will provide valuable constraints for theoretical XRB population synthesis studies to their formation and evolution.
        Publication date
        2022-05-04
        Published in
        The Astrophysical Journal
        Published version
        https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac6351
        License
        http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
        Other links
        http://hdl.handle.net/2299/25513
        Relations
        School of Physics, Engineering & Computer Science
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