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M82 X-1 is one of the brightest ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) known,which, assuming Eddington-limited accretion and other considerations, makes itone of the best intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) candidates. However, theULX may still be explained by super-Eddington accretion onto a stellar-remnantblack hole. We present simultaneous NuSTAR, Chandra and Swift/XRT observationsduring the peak of a flaring episode with the aim of modeling the emission ofM82 X-1 and yielding insights into its nature. We find that thin-accretion diskmodels all require accretion rates at or above the Eddington limit in order toreproduce the spectral shape, given a range of black hole masses and spins.Since at these high Eddington ratios the thin-disk model breaks down due toradial advection in the disk, we discard the results of the thin-disk models asunphysical. We find that the temperature profile as a function of disk radius($T(r)\propto r^{-p}$) is significantly flatter ($p=0.55^{+ 0.07}_{- 0.04}$)than expected for a standard thin disk ($p=0.75$). A flatter profile is insteadcharacteristic of a slim disk which is highly suggestive of super-Eddingtonaccretion. Furthermore, radiation hydrodynamical simulations of super-Eddingtonaccretion have shown that the predicted spectra of these systems are verysimilar to what we observe for M82 X-1. We therefore conclude that M82 X-1 is asuper-Eddington accretor. Our mass estimates inferred from the inner diskradius imply a stellar-remnant black hole ($M_{\rm BH}=26^{+9}_{-6} M_{\odot}$)when assuming zero spin, or an IMBH ($M_{\rm BH}=125^{+45}_{-30} M_{\odot}$)when assuming maximal spin.

A broadband X-ray spectral study of the intermediate-mass black hole candidate M82 X-1 with NuSTAR, Chandra and Swift