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[49.07] Radio Observations of Ultra-Luminous X-Ray Sources and their Implication for Models

E.G. Koerding (MPIfR Bonn, Germany), E.J.M. Colbert (CUA, Washington), H. Falcke (ASTRON, The Netherlands)

We present the results of a radio monitoring campaign to search for radio emission from nearby ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs). These intriguing sources are bright off-nuclear X-ray point sources with luminosities exceeding L_X > 10³⁹ erg/sec. Assuming isotropic emission the Eddington Limit suggests that they harbor intermediate mass black holes. Due to the problems of this explanation also other possibilities are currently discussed, among them are anisotropic emission, super-Eddington accretion flows or relativistically beamed emission from microquasars. Detections of compact radio cores at the positions of ULXs would be a direct hint to jet-emission. However, as the ULX phenomenom is connected to star formation we have to assume that they are strongly accreting objects. Thus, similar to their nearest Galactic cousins, the very high state X-ray binaries (see e.g., GRS 1915), ULXs may show radio flares.

A well-defined sample of the 9 nearest ULXs has been monitored eight times during 5 months with the Very Large Array in A and B configuration. Our limiting sensitivity is 0.15 mJy (4 \sigma) for flares and 68 \muJy for continuous emission. In M82 some ULXs seem to be connected to radio supernova remnants. Besides that no flare or continuous emission has been detected.

As the timescales of radio flares in ULXs are highly uncertain, it could well be that we have undersampled the lightcurve. However, upper bounds for the probability to detect a flare can be given. The upper limits for the continuous emission are compared with the emission found in NGC 5408 X-1 and with quasars and microquasars. We show that these limits are well in agreement with the microblazar model using the Radio/X-ray correlation of XRBs and AGN. Thus, it could well be that ULXs are microblazers which may be radio loud.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: koerding@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #2
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