Spectroscopic Studies of an Ultraluminous Supersoft X-Ray Source in M81

Abstract

Ultraluminous supersoft X-ray sources (ULSs) exhibit supersoft X-ray spectra with blackbody temperatures below 0.1 keV and bolometric luminosities above 10³⁹ ergs s^-1. In this Letter, we report the first optical spectroscopic observations of a ULS in M81 using the LRIS spectrograph on the Keck I telescope. The detected Balmer emission lines show a mean intrinsic velocity dispersion of 400 ± 80 km s^-1, which is consistent with that from an accretion disk. The spectral index of the continuum on the blue side is also consistent with the multi-color disk model. The H_α emission line exhibits a velocity of ∼180 km s^-1 relative to the local stellar environment, suggesting that this ULS may be a halo system in M81 belonging to an old population. No significant shift is found for the H_α emission line between two observations separated by four nights.