The Cool Accretion Disk in ESO 243-49 HLX-1: Further Evidence of an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole

Abstract

With an inferred bolometric luminosity exceeding \(10^{42}\;erg\;s^{–1}\), HLX-1 in ESO 243-49 is the most luminous of ultraluminous X-ray sources and provides one of the strongest cases for the existence of intermediate-mass black holes. We obtain good fits to disk-dominated observations of the source with BHSPEC, a fully relativistic black hole accretion disk spectral model. Due to degeneracies in the model arising from the lack of independent constraints on inclination and black hole spin, there is a factor of 100 uncertainty in the best-fit black hole mass M. Nevertheless, spectral fitting of XMM-Newton observations provides robust lower and upper limits with \(3000\;M_{☉} \lesssim M \lesssim 3 × 10^{5} M_{☉}\), at 90% confidence, placing HLX-1 firmly in the intermediate-mass regime. The lower bound on M is entirely determined by matching the shape and peak energy of the thermal component in the spectrum. This bound is consistent with (but independent of) arguments based solely on the Eddington limit. Joint spectral modeling of the XMM-Newton data with more luminous Swift and Chandra observations increases the lower bound to \(6000\;M_☉\), but this tighter constraint is not independent of the Eddington limit. The upper bound on M is sensitive to the maximum allowed inclination i, and is reduced to \(M \lesssim 10^{5} M_{☉}\) if we limit \(i \lesssim 75°\).