| Dr Kinwah Wu (MSSL) |
| 1st May, 2002 |
| X-rays from normal galaxies |
| Recent observations have shown that nearby galaxies are populated by discrete x-ray sources. These X-ray sources are an inhomogeneous class of objects, consisting of supernova remnants, X-ray binaries, supersoft sources and perhaps the exotic intermediate-mass black holes. The luminosity distributions (luminosity functions) of the soruces are found to be dependent on the morphological types of the host galaxies and on their galactic components. The luminosity functions of sources in early-type galaxies and in bulges of spiral galaxies tend to be broken power laws; while those of sources in starburst galaxies and in disks of spiral galaxies are more often simple power laws. In this talk I will discuss a model for such phenomenon and its implications on our understanding of dynamics and evolutionary history of galaxies. |
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