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R.E. Kilgard, P.E. Kaaret, M.I. Krauss, J.C. McDowell, A.H. Prestwich, M.T. Raley, A. Zezas (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)
We present X-ray point source luminosity functions of 3 starburst galaxies (the Antennae, M82, and NGC 253) and 4 non-starburst spiral galaxies (NGC 3184, NGC 1291, M83, and IC 5332). We find that the luminosity functions of the starbursts are flatter than those of the spiral galaxies; the starbursts have relatively more sources at high luminosities. This trend continues to early-type galaxies which have steeper luminosity functions than spirals. We show that the luminosity function slope is correlated with 60 \mu \rm m luminosity, a measure of star formation. We suggest that the difference in luminosity functions is related to the age of the X-ray binary populations and present a simple model which highlights how the shape of the luminosity distribution is effected by the age of the underlying X-ray binary population.
This work was supported by NASA contract NAS8-39073 (CXC).
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: rkilgard@cfa.harvard.edu