Pulsations and constraints on time lags in two distinct ULXs: NGC 5204 X-1 and NGC 55 ULX-1
Abstract
The nature of ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) is shrouded in mystery as they're believed to be point sources with luminosities above the classical Eddington limit for a 10M⊙ black hole (BH), but generally fit into the classification tree of super-Eddington X-ray binaries. Studies of reverberation lags and lag-energy spectra provide some insight into the nature of viscous turbulence in optically thick, super-Eddington discs, and are useful in conjunction with modelling multi-wavelength spectra and covariance spectra. In this study, we focus on the timing properties of two classically distinct ULXs: NGC 5204 X-1 and NGC 55 ULX-1, both of which are known to emit relativistic winds, as observed by modelling emission line spectra with photo-ionisation models such as SPEX, but are thought to be viewed at slightly different inclinations due to differences in the hardness-ratio of their X-ray continuum. Here, we perform an extensive timing study of the two ULXs to reveal new constraints on the accretion disc size scale and structure. We also perform an accelerated search for pulsations (including the correction for an orbital modulation of the signal) to discover significant spin-periodicities in both NGC 5204 X-1 and NGC 55 ULX-1 (at > 3σ significance).
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BibTeX
@misc{sathyaprakash2026pulsations,
title = {{Pulsations and constraints on time lags in two distinct ULXs: NGC 5204 X-1 and NGC 55 ULX-1}},
author = {Rajath Sathyaprakash and Matthew J. Middleton and Chris Done},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.05236},
eprint = {2610.05236},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.05236},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Pulsations and constraints on time lags in two distinct ULXs: NGC 5204 X-1 and NGC 55 ULX-1
AU - Rajath Sathyaprakash
AU - Matthew J. Middleton
AU - Chris Done
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/06
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.05236
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.05236
AB - The nature of ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) is shrouded in mystery as they're believed to be point sources with luminosities above the classical Eddington limit for a 10M_⊙ black hole (BH), but generally fit into the classification tree of super-Eddington X-ray binaries. Studies of reverberation lags and lag-energy spectra provide some insight into the nature of viscous turbulence in optically thick, super-Eddington discs, and are useful in conjunction with modelling multi-wavelength spectra and covariance spectra. In this study, we focus on the timing properties of two classically distinct ULXs: NGC 5204 X-1 and NGC 55 ULX-1, both of which are known to emit relativistic winds, as observed by modelling emission line spectra with photo-ionisation models such as SPEX, but are thought to be viewed at slightly different inclinations due to differences in the hardness-ratio of their X-ray continuum. Here, we perform an extensive timing study of the two ULXs to reveal new constraints on the accretion disc size scale and structure. We also perform an accelerated search for pulsations (including the correction for an orbital modulation of the signal) to discover significant spin-periodicities in both NGC 5204 X-1 and NGC 55 ULX-1 (at > 3σ significance).
ER -