Gravity seminar - Matthew Middleton Seminar

Abstract: Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) harbour super to hyper Eddington accretion rates onto neutron stars and stellar mass black holes. ULXs are extremely important for several fields of study as they provide not only our most accessible view of accretion at rates which defined the growth of high redshift SMBHs, but they also represent an important epoch in binary evolution. It remains unknown how many of the ~1000 ULXs in the local environment contain neutron stars and black holes, what the strength of the surface magnetic field (dipole and higher order) might be, or how the energy resulting from accretion is partitioned into radiation and kinetic luminosities. In this talk I will discuss current work which hopes to reveal the nature of the accretion flow and accretor, including the possible role of Lense-Thirring torques and the production of continuous gravitational waves from those ULXs harbouring neutron stars.