X-ray variability in NGC 6946, NGC 4485/90 Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Fridriksson J.K.
  2. Homan J.
  3. Lewin W.H.G.
  4. Kong A.K.H.
  5. Pooley D.
  6. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

We analyze data from five Chandra observations of the spiral galaxy NGC 6946 and from three Chandra observations of the irregular/spiral interacting galaxy pair NGC 4485/4490, with an emphasis on investigating the long-term variability exhibited by the source populations. We detect 90 point sources coincident with NGC 6946 down to luminosities of a few times 10^36^ergs/s, and 38 sources coincident with NGC 4485/90 down to a luminosity of ~1x10^37^ergs/s. Twenty-five (15) sources in NGC 6946 (NGC 4485/90) exhibit long-term (i.e., weeks to years) variability in luminosity; 11 (4) are transient candidates. The single ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in NGC 6946 and all but one of the eight ULXs in NGC 4485/90 exhibit long-term flux variability. Two of the ULXs in NGC 4485/90 have not been identified before as ultraluminous sources. The widespread variability in both systems is indicative of the populations being dominated by X-ray binaries, and this is supported by the X-ray colors of the sources. The distribution of colors among the sources indicates a large fraction of high-mass X-ray binaries in both systems. The shapes of the X-ray luminosity functions of the galaxies do not change significantly between observations and can be described by power laws with cumulative slopes ~0.6-0.7 (NGC 6946) and ~0.4 (NGC 4485/90).

Keywords
  1. x-ray-sources
  2. x-ray-binary-stars
  3. galaxies
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2008ApJS..177..465F
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJS/177/465
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/177/465
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.21770465

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http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJS/177/465
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJS/177/465
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJS/177/465
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http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJS/177/465/ngc6946?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJS/177/465/ngc6946?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJS/177/465/ngc6946?
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJS/177/465/ngc4485?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJS/177/465/ngc4485?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJS/177/465/ngc4485?

History

2009-10-28T14:37:16Z
Resource record created
2009-10-28T14:37:16Z
Created
2018-02-01T11:50:43Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr