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Register a new userXMM-Newton observations of the M31 northern disk: Properties of selected X-ray sources and diffuse emission
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We present the results of XMM-Newton survey of the northern part of the disk of M31. The results of a spectral and timing analysis of the thirty seven brightest sources are presented. Combining the results of X-ray analysis with available data at other wavelengths, we were able to classify ~50%, or 19 out of 37 sources. Two sources in our sample were previously unknown: the hard X-ray source XMMU J004415.8+413057 and a transient supersoft source XMMUJ004414.1+412206. We report the discovery of possible X-ray pulsations from the source XMMUJ004415.8+413057 with a period of 197 s. The spectral and timing properties of XMMU J004415.8+413057 make it first accreting X-ray pulsar candidate detected in M31. We report on the first unambiguous detection of the soft unresolved X-ray emission from the disk of M31. The unresolved emission follows the pattern of the spiral arms and can be traced up to distance of ~0.5 deg (~7 kpc at 760 kpc) from the center of the galaxy. The spectrum of the unresolved emission shows dominant soft thermal component which can be fitted with a ~0.3 keV optically thin thermal plasma emission models. We suggest that significant part of this diffuse soft X-ray component may represent hot diffuse gas in the spiral arms of M31 and emission from normal stars in the disk of M31.
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We present the results of the ongoing XMM-Newton survey of M31. 17 X-ray sources detected in the survey have bright radio counterparts, and 15 X-ray sources coincide with SNR candidates from optical and radio surveys. 15 out of 17 sources with radio counterparts, not SNR candidates, have spectral properties similar to that observed for background radio galaxies/quasars or Crab-like supernova remnants located in M31. The remaining two sources, XMMU J004046.8+405525 and XMMU J004249.1+412407, have soft X-ray spectra, and are associated with spatially resolved H-alpha emission regions, which makes them two new SNR candidates in M31. The observed absorbed X-ray luminosities of SNR candidates in our sample range from 1e35 to 5e36 ergs/s, assuming the distance of 760 kpc. Most of the SNR candidates detected in our survey have soft X-ray spectra. The spectra of the brightest sources show presence of emission lines and can be fit by thermal plasma models with kT~0.1-0.4 keV. The results of spectral fitting of SNR candidates suggest that most of them should be located in a relatively low density regions. We show that X-ray color-color diagrams can be useful tool for distinguishing between intrinsically hard background radio sources and Crab-like SNR and thermal SNR in M31 with soft spectra.
We analyzed two XMM-Newton observations in the direction of the high density, high latitude, neutral hydrogen cloud MBM20 and of a nearby low density region that we called the Eridanus hole. The cloud MBM20 is at a distance evaluated between 100 and 200 pc from the Sun and its density is sufficiently high to shield about 75% of the foreground emission in the 3/4 keV energy band.The combination of the two observations makes possible an evaluation of the OVII and OVIII emission both for the foreground component due to the Local Bubble,and the background one, due primary to the galactic halo.The two observations are in good agreement with each other and with ROSAT observations of the same part of the sky and the OVII and OVIII fluxes are OVII=3.89+/-0.56 photons cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1, OVIII=0.68+/-0.24 photons cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1 for MBM20 and OVII=7.26+/-0.34 photons cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1,OVIII=1.63+/-0.17 photons cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1 for the Eridanus hole. The spectra are in agreement with a simple three component model, one unabsorbed and one absorbed plasma component, and a power law, without evidence for any strong contamination from ion exchange in the solar system. Assuming that the two plasma components are in thermal equilibrium we obtain a temperature of 0.096 keV for the foreground component and 0.197 keV for the background one. Assuming the foreground component is due solely to Local Bubble emission we obtain a lower and upper limit for the plasma density of 0.0079 cm^-3 and 0.0095 cm^-3 and limits of 16,200 cm^-3 K and 19,500 cm^-3 K for the plasma pressure, in good agreement with theoretical predictions. Similarly, assuming that the absorbed plasma component is due to Galactic halo emission, we obtain a plasma density ranging from 0.0009 cm^-3 to 0.0016 cm^-3, and a pressure ranging from 3.0*10^3 to 6.7*10^3 cm^-3 K.
(Abridged) We present the results of M31 globular cluster (GC) X-ray source survey, based on the data of XMM-Newton and Chandra observations covering ~6100 sq.arcmin of M31. We detected 43 X-ray sources coincident with globular cluster candidates from optical surveys. The estimated isotropic X-ray luminosities of GC sources lie between ~10e35 and ~10e39 erg/s in the 0.3 - 10 keV energy band. The spectral properties and variability of M31 GC X-ray sources are consistent with that derived for the LMXBs in the bulges of M31 and Milky Way. We found that ~80% of the M31 GC sources with multiple flux measurements available show significant variability on a time scales from days to years. The X-ray luminosity function of GC sources is found to be significantly different from that of the point sources in the bulge and disk of M31 and that of the Galactic GC X-ray sources. GC sources make dominant contribution to the bright source counts in the areas of M31 covered by the survey: ~40% of the total number of sources with luminosities above 10e37 ergs/s reside in GCs with fraction of GC sources rising to 67-90% for the luminosities above 10e38 ergs/s. The contribution of the GC sources to the total number of bright sources found in M31 is much higher than in the Milky Way galaxy, but surprisingly close to that of the early-type galaxies. The brightest M31 GC sources tend to reside at large galactocentric distances outside the central bulge. We found that globular clusters hosting bright X-ray sources are optically brighter and more metal rich than the rest of M31 globular clusters. The brightest sources with luminosities above ~10e38 ergs/s show tendency to reside in more metal poor clusters.
Power density spectra (PDS) that are characteristic of low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) have been previously reported for M31 X-ray sources observed by XMM-Newton. However, we have recently discovered that these PDS are false positives resulting from the improper manipulation of non-simultaneous lightcurves. The lightcurves produced by the XMM-Newton Science Analysis Software (SAS) are non-synchronised by default. This affects not only the combination of lightcurves from the three EPIC detectors (MOS1, MOS2 and pn), but also background subtraction in the same CCD. It is therefore imperative that all SAS-generated lightcurves are synchronised by time filtering, even if the whole observation is to be used. We combined simulated lightcurves at various intensities with various offsets and found that the artefact is more dependent on the offset than the intensity. While previous timing results from M31 have been proven wrong, and also the broken power law PDS in NGC 4559 ULX-7, XMM-Newton was able to detect aperiodic variability in just 3 ks of observations of NGC 5408 ULX1. Hence XMM-Newton remains a viable tool for analysing variability in extra-galactic X-ray sources.
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