The Swift/XRT light curve of the ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5408 X-1 was re-analyzed with two new numerical approaches, the Weighted Wavelet Ztransform and CLEANest, and the results are different from previous stu...The Swift/XRT light curve of the ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5408 X-1 was re-analyzed with two new numerical approaches, the Weighted Wavelet Ztransform and CLEANest, and the results are different from previous studies. Both techniques detected a prominent periodicity with a time scale of 115.5 ± 1.5 days, in excellent agreement with the detection of the same periodicity first reported by Strohmayer . Monte Carlo simulations were employed to test the statisitical confidence of the 115.5-day periodicity, yielding a statistical significance of 〉 99.98% （or 〉 3.8σ）. The robust detection of the 115.5-day quasi-periodic oscillations, if they are due to the orbital motion of the binary, would infer a mass of a few thousand M⊙ for the central black hole, implying there is an intermediate-mass black hole in NGC 5408 X-1.展开更多
基金partly supported by the National Basic Research Program of China(973 Program, Grant Nos. 2009CB24900 and 2013CB837901)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61261017)+3 种基金the Strategic Priority Research Program of the CAS(XDA04060700)the China-Hungary Exchange Program of the CASthe Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA K104529) the Science & Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (06DZ22101)
文摘The Swift/XRT light curve of the ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5408 X-1 was re-analyzed with two new numerical approaches, the Weighted Wavelet Ztransform and CLEANest, and the results are different from previous studies. Both techniques detected a prominent periodicity with a time scale of 115.5 ± 1.5 days, in excellent agreement with the detection of the same periodicity first reported by Strohmayer . Monte Carlo simulations were employed to test the statisitical confidence of the 115.5-day periodicity, yielding a statistical significance of 〉 99.98% （or 〉 3.8σ）. The robust detection of the 115.5-day quasi-periodic oscillations, if they are due to the orbital motion of the binary, would infer a mass of a few thousand M⊙ for the central black hole, implying there is an intermediate-mass black hole in NGC 5408 X-1.
