ULXRBCAT - Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources in External Galaxies Catalog

Overview

This table is a catalog of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in external galaxies, where ULXs have been defined as compact, off-nuclear X-ray sources with X-ray luminosities in the range of 10³⁹ - 10⁴¹ erg/s. The aim of this catalog is to provide easy access to the properties of ULXs, their possible counterparts at other wavelengths (optical, IR, and radio), and the properties of their host galaxies. The catalog contains 229 ULXs found in 85 galaxies which had been reported in the astronomy literature as of April 2004. Most ULXs are stellar-mass-black hole X-ray binaries, but it cannot be excluded that some ULXs might be intermediate-mass black holes. A small fraction of the candidate ULXs might be background Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) or Supernova Remnants (SNRs). ULXs with luminosity above 10⁴⁰ erg/s are found in both starburst galaxies and in the halos of early-type galaxies. Some notes on individual galaxies and/or ULXs in this catalog can be found in the file https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/429/1125/notes.dat which is available at the CDS.

Catalog Bibcode

2005A&A...429.1125L

References

A catalogue of ultraluminous X-ray sources in external galaxies.
    Liu Q.Z., Mirabel I.R.
    <Astron. Astrophys. 429, 1125 (2005)>
    =2005A&A...429.1125L        (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)

Provenance

This table was created by the HEASARC in January 2005, based on CDS tables J/A+A/429/1125/table1a.dat and table1b.dat. It was updated in September 2012 to correct an error in the declination signs of the NGC 253 objects.

Parameters

Name
The ultraluminous X-Ray source designation.

Alt_Name
An alternative name for the ULX which has been previously used in the literature.

RA
The Right Ascension of the ULX in the selected equinox. This was given in J2000 coordinates and with a typical precision of 0.1 seconds of time in the original table.

Dec
The Declination of the ULX in the selected equinox. This was given in J2000 coordinates and with a typical precision of 0.1 - 1 arcsecond in the original table.

LII
The Galactic Longitude of the ULX.

BII
The Galactic Latitude of the ULX.

Lx
The peak X-ray luminosity of the ULX, in erg/s, in the energy range specified by the lower_energy and upper_energy parameters.

Lower_Energy
The lower limit of the energy range, in keV, corresponding to the quoted X-ray luminosity.

Upper_Energy
The upper limit of the energy range, in keV, corresponding to the quoted X-ray luminosity.

Nuclear_Offset
The nuclear offset of the ULX, in arcseconds, i.e., the radial location of the ULX measured from the galaxy center, assuming that its nucleus is at the RC3 (CDS Catalog VII/155) optical position.

Model_Type
Only strong X-ray sources with enough X-ray counts have X-ray spectral fits. This parameter contains the type(s) of spectral model which gave the best-fit to recent X-ray observations of the ULX, where the following abbreviations have been used (if a two-component fit was needed, the '+' symbol is used between the two fit models):

        PL: power-law model
        BB: blackbody
       MCD: multicolor disk (Mitsuda et al., 1984PASJ...36..741M)
       MKL: MEKAL
        BR: bremsstrahlung
        RS: Raymond-Smith thermal model (Raymond & Smith 1977ApJS...35..419R)

Model_Params
Only strong X-ray sources with enough X-ray counts have X-ray spectral fits. This parameter contains the best-fit model parameters, giving the spectral index value for a power-law fit, and the inner temperature in keV for a Thermal Model Fit. If a two-component fit was needed, the '+' symbol is used between the fit values for the two components.

Galaxy_Name
The designation of the host galaxy of the ULX.

Alt_Galaxy_Name
An alternative name for the host galaxy of the ULX.

Hubble_Class
The Hubble classification type for the host galaxy of the ULX, taken from the RC3.

Morph_Type
The morphological 't' type of the host galaxy of the ULX, taken from the RC3, where -5 is the value for an elliptical galaxy, 0 for an S0a galaxy, and 10 for a Magellanic-type irregular galaxy, etc.

Morph_Type_2
The morphological 't' type of the second galaxy, when the ULX is located in a pair of galaxies.

Distance
The distance to the host galaxy, in megaparsecs (Mpc). This was extracted from the Nearby Galaxies Catalog of Tully (1988) if the recessional velocity listed in the RC3 was less than 1000 km/s, otherwise it was computed by the authors from the recessional velocity using a Hubble Constant value of 75 km/s/Mpc.

NH_Gal
The galactic Hydrogen column density in units of atoms/cm², taken from Dickey & Lockman (1990ARA&A..28..215D).

NH_Gal_2
An upper value for the galactic Hydrogen column density, in atoms/cm², when a range of values was given for this parameter.

Bmag_Gal
The B-band photographic magnitude of the ULX's host galaxy, taken from the RC3.

Bmag_Gal_2
The B magnitude of the second galaxy, if the ULX is located in a pair of galaxies.

Ks_Mag_Gal
The near-infrared K_s magnitude of the ULX's host galaxy, calculated from the 20 mag/arcsec² ispohotal magnitude listed in the 2MASS Large Galaxy Atlas of Jarrett et al.(2003, = 2003AJ....125..525J).

Ks_Mag_Gal_2
The K_s magnitude of the second galaxy, if the ULX is located in a pair of galaxies.

FIR_Mag_Gal
The far-infrared magnitude M(FIR) of the ULX's host galaxy, calculated from the relation M(FIR) = -20.0 - 2.5 * log F(FIR), where F(FIR) is the far-infrared continuum flux measured at 60 and 100 microns as listed in the IRAS Point Source Catalog (CDS Catalog II/125).

Contact Person

Questions regarding the ULXRBCAT database table can be addressed to the HEASARC Help Desk.

Page Author: Browse Software Development Team
Last Modified: Monday, 16-Sep-2024 17:35:59 EDT