Logo image
Chandra Observations of Soft Sources in Galaxies: New insights into binary evolution, Type Ia progenitors, and intermediate-mass black holes
Conference paper

Chandra Observations of Soft Sources in Galaxies: New insights into binary evolution, Type Ia progenitors, and intermediate-mass black holes

Rosanne di Stefano, Francis A. Primini, Brandon Patel, Jifeng Liu, Jochen Greiner, Albert Kong and Roberto Soria
Chandra’s First Decade of Discovery
2009

Abstract

Galaxies
At the time Chandra was launched, we knew of only two dozen super soft x-ray sources (SSSs). Furthermore, the natures of most had not yet been understood. Chandra observations of more than 300 galaxies has discovered >1000 SSSs and established the statistics of the class while at the same time identifying its most extreme and intriguing members. We have discovered slightly harder sources, quasisoft x-ray sources (QSSs), and also much more luminous soft sources than any known in our Galaxy or in the Magellanic Clouds, with L in the range 10^{40}-10^{41} erg/s. Beyond the numbers, these observations have taught us a great deal about binary evolution, nuclear burning on white dwarfs and the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae, and models for intermediate-mass black holes. We review the revolution in our understanding of these sources made possible by the first decade of Chandra.

Metrics

1 Record Views

Details

Logo image