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Demonstrating the Likely Neutron Star Nature of Five M31 Globular Cluster Sources with Swift-NuSTAR SpectroscopyWe present the results of a joint Swift-NuSTAR spectroscopy campaign on M31. We focus on the five brightest globular cluster X-ray sources in our fields. Two of these had previously been argued to be black hole candidates on the basis of apparent hard-state spectra at luminosities above those for which neutron stars are in hard states. We show that these two sources are likely to be Z-sources (i.e. low magnetic field neutron stars accreting near their Eddington limits), or perhaps bright atoll sources (low magnetic field neutron stars which are just a bit fainter than this level) on the basis of simultaneous Swift and NuSTAR spectra which cover a broader range of energies. These new observations reveal spectral curvature above 6-8 keV that would be hard to detect without the broader energy coverage the NuSTAR data provide relative to Chandra and XMM-Newton. We show that the other three sources are also likely to be bright neutron star X-ray binaries, rather than black hole X-ray binaries. We discuss why it should already have been realized that it was unlikely that these objects were black holes on the basis of their being persistent sources, and we re-examine past work which suggested that tidal capture products would be persistently bright X-ray emitters. We discuss how this problem is likely due to neglecting disc winds in older work that predict which systems will be persistent and which will be transient.
Document ID
20170003067
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Maccarone, Thomas J.
(Texas Tech Univ. Lubbock, TX, United States)
Yukita, Mihoko
(Johns Hopkins Univ. Baltimore, MD, United States)
Hornschemeier, Ann
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Lehmer, Bret D.
(Johns Hopkins Univ. Baltimore, MD, United States)
Antoniou, Vallia
(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Cambridge, MA, United States)
Ptak, Andrew
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Wik, Daniel R.
(Johns Hopkins Univ. Baltimore, MD, United States)
Zezas, Andreas
(Crete Univ. Crete, Greece)
Boyd, Padi
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Kennea, Jamie
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Stern, Daniel
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Zhang, William W.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
April 6, 2017
Publication Date
March 7, 2016
Publication Information
Publication: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Volume: 458
Issue: 4
ISSN: 0035-8711
e-ISSN: 1365-2966
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN40790
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX14AB76A
CONTRACT_GRANT: ERC GA# 617001
CONTRACT_GRANT: FP/2007-2103
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
globular clusters: general
galaxies: individual: M 31
X-rays: binaries

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