J/ApJS/194/18    The Galactic Bulge Survey: X-ray observations   (Jonker+, 2011)

The Galactic Bulge Survey: outline and X-ray observations. Jonker P.G., Bassa C.G., Nelemans G., Steeghs D., Torres M.A.P., Maccarone T.J., Hynes R.I., Greiss S., Clem J., Dieball A., Mikles V.J., Britt C.T., Gossen L., Collazzi A.C., Wijnands R., In't Zand J.J.M., Mendez M., Rea N., Kuulkers E., Ratti E.M., van Haaften L.M., Heinke C., Ozel F., Groot P.J., Verbunt F. <Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 194, 18 (2011)> =2011ApJS..194...18J 2011ApJS..194...18J
ADC_Keywords: Binaries, X-ray ; Surveys Keywords: accretion, accretion disks - binaries: close - X-rays: binaries Abstract: We introduce the Galactic Bulge Survey (GBS) and we provide the Chandra source list for the region that has been observed to date. Among the goals of the GBS are constraining the neutron star (NS) equation of state and the black hole (BH) mass distribution via the identification of eclipsing NS and BH low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). The GBS targets two strips of 6°x1° (12deg2 in total), one above (1°<b<2°) and one below (-2°<b←1°) the Galactic plane in the direction of the Galactic center at both X-ray and optical wavelengths. By avoiding the Galactic plane (-1°<b<1°) we limit the influence of extinction on the X-ray and optical emission but still sample relatively large number densities of sources. The survey is designed such that a large fraction of the X-ray sources can be identified from their optical spectra. The X-ray survey, by design, covers a large area on the sky while the depth is shallow using 2ks per Chandra pointing. In this way we maximize the predicted number ratio of (quiescent) LMXBs to cataclysmic variables. The survey is approximately homogeneous in depth to a 0.5-10keV flux of 7.7x10-14erg/cm2/s. So far, we have covered about two-thirds (8.3deg2) of the projected survey area with Chandra providing over 1200 unique X-ray sources. We discuss the characteristics and the variability of the brightest of these sources. Description: The Chandra observations have been performed using the I0 to I3 CCDs of the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) detector. The observation identification (ID) numbers for the data presented here are 8643-8774 and 9977-10024. We also reprocessed and reanalyzed the data that were obtained as part of the Bulge Latitude Survey (Grindlay et al. 2005ApJ...635..920G 2005ApJ...635..920G; Hong et al. 2009ApJ...706..223H 2009ApJ...706..223H; observation IDs 7160-7162, 7166-7168, 8199-8204, 9562-9564) Optical imaging observations covering the full GBS area have been obtained using the prime focus MOSAIC II instrument mounted on the 4m Victor M. Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American (CTIO) observatory. We employed the Sloan r', i', and Hα filters with exposures of 120, 180, and 480s, respectively. For the optical astrometry we used the UCAC2 catalog (Zacharias et al. 2004, Cat. I/289, obsoleted by I/315). File Summary: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FileName Lrecl Records Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ReadMe 80 . This file table3.dat 97 1234 The GBS X-ray source list -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- See also: B/chandra : The Chandra Archive Log (CXC, 1999-) II/304 : UKIDSS-DR5 (Lawrence+ 2011) II/293 : GLIMPSE Source Catalog (I + II + 3D) (IPAC 2008) I/289 : UCAC2 Catalogue (Zacharias+ 2004) IX/10 : ROSAT All-Sky Bright Source Catalogue (1RXS) (Voges+ 1999) II/213 : OGLE Galactic Bulge periodic variables (Udalski+ 1996) J/ApJ/685/463 : ChaMPlane X-ray sources in the Galactic bulge (Koenig+, 2008) J/AN/324/437 : Hα emission stars toward Bulge (Kohoutek+, 2003) J/AcA/52/217 : OGLE II. VI photometry of Galactic Bulge (Udalski+, 2002) Byte-by-byte Description of file: table3.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1- 6 A6 --- --- [CXOGBS] 8- 23 A16 --- CXOGBS Source name (JHHMMSS.s+DDMMSS) 25- 28 I4 --- Seq [1/1234] Source index number 30- 41 F12.8 deg RAdeg Right Ascension in decimal degrees (J2000) 43- 55 F13.9 deg DEdeg Declination in decimal degrees (J2000) 57- 61 F5.3 arcsec e_RAdeg Error in RAdeg 63- 67 F5.3 arcsec e_DEdeg Error in DEdeg 69- 72 I4 ct Total Number of counts detected 74- 78 I5 --- ObsID Chandra observation identification number 80- 84 F5.2 arcmin OAxis Off-axis angle source detected 86 I1 --- Ndet Number of detections 88- 92 F5.2 --- HR ? Hardness ratio (1) 94- 97 F4.2 --- e_HR ? Error in HR -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note (1): The HR is calculated for the detection where the off-axis angle was smallest if the source was detected multiple times. HR is the ratio between the count rate in the 2.5-8keV minus that in the 0.3-2.5keV band to the count rate in the full 0.3-8keV energy band. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History: From electronic version of the journal
(End) Greg Schwarz [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 08-Aug-2011
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