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Register a new userThe XMM-Newton SSC Survey of the Galactic Plane
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The XMM-Newton Survey Science Center is currently conducting an optical identification programme of serendipitous EPIC sources at low galactic latitudes. The aim of this study is to quantify the various populations contributing to the overall X-ray emission of the Galaxy and elaborate identification rules that can be later applied to the bulk of the low galactic latitude EPIC detections. We report here on preliminary results from an optical campaign performed in two very low b XMM-Newton fields and discuss the contributions of the various X-ray populations. This paper is presented on behalf of the Survey Science Center and of the AXIS collaboration.
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We report the results of an optical campaign carried out by the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre with the specific goal of identifying the brightest X-ray sources in the XMM-Newton Galactic Plane Survey of Hands et al. (2004). In addition to photometric and spectroscopic observations obtained at the ESO-VLT and ESO-3.6m, we used cross-correlations with the 2XMMi, USNO-B1.0, 2MASS and GLIMPSE catalogues to progress the identification process. Active coronae account for 16 of the 30 identified X-ray sources. Many of the identified hard X-ray sources are associated with massive stars emitting at intermediate X-ray luminosities of 10^32-34 erg/s. Among these are a very absorbed likely hyper-luminous star with X-ray/optical spectra and luminosities comparable with those of eta Carina, a new X-ray selected WN8 Wolf-Rayet star, a new Be/X-ray star belonging to the growing class of Gamma-Cas analogs and a possible supergiant X-ray binary of the kind discovered recently by INTEGRAL. One of the sources, XGPS-25 has a counterpart which exhibits HeII 4686 and Bowen CIII-NIII emission lines suggesting a quiescent or X-ray shielded Low Mass X-ray Binary, although its properties might also be consistent with a rare kind of cataclysmic variable (CV). We also report the discovery of three new CVs, one of which is a likely magnetic system. The soft (0.4-2.0 keV) band LogN-LogS curve is completely dominated by active stars in the flux range of 1x10^-13 to 1x10^-14 erg/cm2/s. In total, we are able to identify a large fraction of the hard (2-10 keV) X-ray sources in the flux range of 1x10^-12 to 1x10^-13 erg/cm2/s with Galactic objects at a rate consistent with that expected for the Galactic contribution only. (abridged)
We present optical and X-ray data for a sample of serendipitous XMM-Newton sources that are selected to have 0.5-2 keV vs 2-4.5 keV X-ray hardness ratios which are harder than the X-ray background. The sources have 2-4.5 keV X-ray flux >= 10^-14 cgs, and in this paper we examine a subsample of 42 optically bright (r < 21) sources; this subsample is 100 per cent spectroscopically identified. All but one of the optical counterparts are extragalactic, and we argue that the single exception, a Galactic M star, is probably a coincidental association. The X-ray spectra are consistent with heavily absorbed power laws (21.8 < log NH < 23.4), and all of them appear to be absorbed AGN. The majority of the sources show only narrow emission lines in their optical spectra, implying that they are type-2 AGN. Only a small fraction of the sources (7/42) show broad optical emission lines, and all of these have NH < 10^23 cm^-2. This implies that ratios of X-ray absorption to optical/UV extinction equivalent to > 100 times the Galactic gas-to-dust ratio are rare in AGN absorbers (at most a few percent of the population), and may be restricted to broad absorption-line QSOs. Seven objects appear to have an additional soft X-ray component in addition to the heavily absorbed power law. We consider the implications of our results in the light of the AGN unified scheme. We find that the soft components in narrow-line objects are consistent with the unified scheme provided that > 4 per cent of broad-line AGN have ionised absorbers that attenuate their soft X-ray flux by >50 per cent. In at least one of the X-ray absorbed, broad-line AGN in our sample the X-ray spectrum requires an ionised absorber, consistent with this picture.
In A0-1 we proposed an ambitious long-term survey of selected regions of our Galaxy (the XGPS survey) using the EPIC CCD cameras on XMM-Newton. The first phase of the programme, which aims to survey a strip of the Galactic Plane in the Scutum region, is currently underway. Here we report on the preliminary results from the first 15 survey pointings. We show that the XGPS survey strategy of fairly shallow (5-10 ks) exposures but wide-angle coverage is well tuned to the goal of providing a large catalogue of predominantly Galactic sources at relatively faint X-ray fluxes in the hard 2-6 keV band.
We present an XMM-Newton observation of the highly polarized low-surface brightness supernova remnant G107.5-1.5, discovered with the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS). We do not detect diffuse X-ray emission from the SNR and set an upper limit on the surface brightness of ~2 x 10^30 erg arcmin^-2 s^-1, at an assumed distance of 1.1 kpc. We found eight bright point sources in the field, including the ROSAT source 1RXS J225203.8+574249 near the centre of the radio shell. Spectroscopic analysis of some of the embedded point sources, including the ROSAT source, has been performed, and all eight sources are most likely ruled out as the associated neutron star, primarily due to counterpart bright stars in optical and infrared bands. Timing analysis of the bright point sources yielded no significant evidence for pulsations, but, due to the timing resolution, only a small part of the frequency space could be searched. An additional ten fainter point sources were identified in the vicinity of the SNR. Further X-ray observation of these and the region in the vicinity of the radio shell may be warranted.
This paper describes the performance of XMM-Newton for serendipitous surveys and summarises the scope and potential of the XMM-Newton Serendipitous Survey. The role of the Survey Science Centre (SSC) in the XMM-Newton project is outlined. The SSCs follow-up and identification programme for the XMM-Newton serendipitous survey is described together with the presentation of some of the first results.
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