Multiwavelength Modeling the SED of Luminous Supersoft X-Ray Sources in Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

Abstract Classical supersoft X-ray sources (SSSs) are understood as close binary systems in which a massive white dwarf accretes from its companion at rates sustaining steady hydrogen burning on its surface generating bolometric luminosities of 1036–2 × 1038 erg s−1. Here, we perform for the first time the global supersoft X-rays to near-infrared (NIR) spectral energy distribution (SED) for the brightest SSSs in the Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud. We test a model in which the ultraviolet–NIR is dominated by emission from a compact (unresolved) circumstellar nebula represented by the ionized gas outflowing from the SSS. The SED models correspond to luminosities of SSSs of a few times 1038–1039 erg s−1, radiating at blackbody temperatures of ≈3 × 105 K, and indicate a nebular continuum, whose emission measure of ≳2 × 1060 cm−3 corresponds to a wind mass loss at rates ≳2 × 10−6 M ⊙ yr−1. Such extreme parameters suggest that the brightest SSSs could be unidentified optical novae in a post-nova SSS state sustained at a high long-lasting luminosity by resumed accretion, possibly at super-Eddington rates. New observations and theoretical multiwavelength modeling of the global SED of SSSs are needed to reliably determine their parameters, and thus understand their proper stage in stellar evolution.