J. P. Pye

The XMM-Newton serendipitous survey: V - The Second XMM-Newton serendipitous source catalogue

Aims. Pointed observations with XMM-Newton provide the basis for creating catalogues of X-ray sources detected serendipitously in each field. This paper describes the creation and characteristics of the 2XMM catalogue. Methods. The 2XMM catalogue has been compiled from a new processing of the XMM-Newton EPIC camera data. The main features of the processing pipeline are described in detail. Results. The catalogue, the largest ever made at X-ray wavelengths, contains 246 897 detections drawn from 3491 public XMM-Newton observations over a 7-year interval, which relate to 191 870 unique sources. The catalogue fields cover a sky area of more than 500 deg(2). The non-overlapping sky area is similar to 360 deg(2) (similar to 1% of the sky) as many regions of the sky are observed more than once by XMM-Newton. The catalogue probes a large sky area at the flux limit where the bulk of the objects that contribute to the X-ray background lie and provides a major resource for generating large, well-defined X-ray selected source samples, studying the X-ray source population and identifying rare object types. The main characteristics of the catalogue are presented, including its photometric and astrometric properties

The XMM-Newton serendipitous survey - VII. The third XMM-Newton serendipitous source catalogue

© ESO, 2016.Context. Thanks to the large collecting area (3 × ∼1500 cm2 at 1.5 keV) and wide field of view (30′ across in full field mode) of the X-ray cameras on board the European Space Agency X-ray observatory XMM-Newton, each individual pointing can result in the detection of up to several hundred X-ray sources, most of which are newly discovered objects. Since XMM-Newton has now been in orbit for more than 15 yr, hundreds of thousands of sources have been detected. Aims. Recently, many improvements in the XMM-Newton data reduction algorithms have been made. These include enhanced source characterisation and reduced spurious source detections, refined astrometric precision of sources, greater net sensitivity for source detection, and the extraction of spectra and time series for fainter sources, both with better signal-to-noise. Thanks to these enhancements, the quality of the catalogue products has been much improved over earlier catalogues. Furthermore, almost 50% more observations are in the public domain compared to 2XMMi-DR3, allowing the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre to produce a much larger and better quality X-ray source catalogue. Methods. The XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre has developed a pipeline to reduce the XMM-Newton data automatically. Using the latest version of this pipeline, along with better calibration, a new version of the catalogue has been produced, using XMM-Newton X-ray observations made public on or before 2013 December 31. Manual screening of all of the X-ray detections ensures the highest data quality. This catalogue is known as 3XMM. Results. In the latest release of the 3XMM catalogue, 3XMM-DR5, there are 565 962 X-ray detections comprising 396 910 unique X-ray sources. Spectra and lightcurves are provided for the 133 000 brightest sources. For all detections, the positions on the sky, a measure of the quality of the detection, and an evaluation of the X-ray variability is provided, along with the fluxes and count rates in 7 X-ray energy bands, the total 0.2-12 keV band counts, and four hardness ratios. With the aim of identifying the detections, a cross correlation with 228 catalogues of sources detected in all wavebands is also provided for each X-ray detection. Conclusions. 3XMM-DR5 is the largest X-ray source catalogue ever produced. Thanks to the large array of data products associated with each detection and each source, it is an excellent resource for finding new and extreme objects.

The XMM-Newton view of stellar coronae: X-ray spectroscopy of the corona of AB Doradus

M. A. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grants 2100-049343 and 2000-058827), from the Swiss Academy of Sciences, and from the Swiss Commission for Space Research. H. M., K. B, and J. P. acknowledge financial support from PPARC. A. M. and R. P. acknowledge support from the Italian Space Agency. SRON is supported financially by NWO.

The XMM-Newton serendipitous survey - IV. Optical identification of the XMM-Newton medium sensitivity survey (XMS)

Aims. X-ray sources at intermediate fluxes (a few x 10(-14) erg cm(-2) s(-1)) with a sky density of similar to 100 deg(-2) are responsible for a significant fraction of the cosmic X-ray background at various energies below 10 keV. The aim of this paper is to provide an unbiased and quantitative description of the X-ray source population at these fluxes and in various X-ray energy bands. Methods. We present the XMM-Newton Medium sensitivity Survey (XMS), including a total of 318 X-ray sources found among the serendipitous content of 25 XMM-Newton target fields. The XMS comprises four largely overlapping source samples selected at soft (0.5-2 keV), intermediate (0.5-4.5 keV), hard (2-10 keV) and ultra-hard (4.5-7.5 keV) bands, the first three of them being flux-limited. Results. We report on the optical identification of the XMS samples, complete to 85-95%. At the flux levels sampled by the XMS we find that the X-ray sky is largely dominated by Active Galactic Nuclei. The fraction of stars in soft X-ray selected samples is below 10%, and only a few per cent for hard selected samples. We find that the fraction of optically obscured objects in the AGN population stays constant at around 15-20% for soft and intermediate band selected X-ray sources, over 2 decades of flux. The fraction of obscured objects amongst the AGN population is larger (similar to 35-45%) in the hard or ultra-hard selected samples, and constant across a similarly wide flux range. The distribution in X-ray-to-optical flux ratio is a strong function of the selection band, with a larger fraction of sources with high values in hard selected samples. Sources with X-ray-to-optical flux ratios in excess of 10 are dominated by obscured AGN, but with a significant contribution from unobscured AGN.

The XMM-Newton Serendipitous Survey - I. The role of XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre

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.

An XMM–Newton observation of the young open cluster NGC 2547: coronal activity at 30 Myr

We report on XMM-Newton observations of the young open cluster NGC 2547 which allow us to characterize coronal activity in solar-type stars, and stars of lower mass, at an age of 30 Myr. X-ray emission is seen from stars at all spectral types, peaking among G stars at luminosities (0.3-3 keV) of L x ≃ 10 30.5 erg s -1 and declining to L x ≤ 10 29.0 erg s -1 among M stars with masses ≥0.2 M ⊙ . Coronal spectra show evidence for multi-temperature differential emission measures and low coronal metal abundances of Z ≃ 0.3. The G- and K-type stars of NGC 2547 follow the same relationship between X-ray activity and Rossby number established in older clusters and field stars, although most of the solar-type stars in NGC 2547 exhibit saturated or even supersaturated X-ray activity levels. The median levels of L x and L x /L bol in the solar-type stars of NGC 2547 are very similar to those in T-Tauri stars of the Orion Nebula cluster (ONC), but an order of magnitude higher than in the older Pleiades. The spread in X-ray activity levels among solar-type stars in NGC 2547 is much smaller than in older or younger clusters. Coronal temperatures increase with L x , L x /L bol and surface X-ray flux. The most active solar-type stars in NGC 2547 have coronal temperatures intermediate between those in the ONC and the most active older zero-age main-sequence (ZAMS) stars. We show that simple scaling arguments predict higher coronal temperature in coronally saturated stars with lower gravities. A number of candidate flares were identified among the low-mass members and a flaring rate [for total flare energies (0.3-3 keV) > 10 34 erg] of one every 350 +350 -120 ks was found for solar-type stars, which is similar to rates found in the ONC and Pleiades. Comparison with ROSAT High Resolution Imager (HRI) data taken 7 yr earlier reveals that only 10-15 per cent of solar-type stars or stars with L x > 3 x 10 29 erg s -1 exhibit X-ray variability by more than a factor of 2. This is comparable with clusters of similar age but less than in both older and younger clusters. The similar median levels of X-ray activity and rate of occurrence for large flares in NGC 2547 and the ONC demonstrate that the X-ray radiation environment around young solar-type stars remains relatively constant over their first 30 Myr.

Investigating coronal saturation and supersaturation in fast-rotating M-dwarf stars

At fast rotation rates, the coronal activity of G- and K-type stars has been observed to ‘saturate’ and then decline again at even faster rotation rates – a phenomenon dubbed ‘supersaturation’. In this paper, we investigate coronal activity in fast-rotating M-dwarfs using deep XMM–Newton observations of 97 low-mass stars of known rotation period in the young open cluster NGC 2547 and combine these with published X-ray surveys of low-mass field and cluster stars of known rotation period. Like G- and K-dwarfs, we find that M-dwarfs exhibit increasing coronal activity with decreasing Rossby number NR, the ratio of period to convective turnover time, and that activity saturates at LX/Lbol � 10 −3 for log NR < −0.8. However, supersaturation is not convincingly displayed by M-dwarfs, despite the presence of many objects in our sample with log NR < −1.8, where supersaturation is observed to occur in higher mass stars. Instead, it appears that a short rotation period is the primary predictor of supersaturation; P ≤ 0.3 d for K-dwarfs and perhaps P ≤ 0.2 d for M-dwarfs. These observations favour the ‘centrifugal stripping’ model for supersaturation, where coronal structures are forced open or become radiatively unstable as the Keplerian corotation radius moves inside the X-ray-emitting coronal volume.

XMM-Newton survey of the low-metallicity open cluster NGC 2516

We present the first results of an XMM-Newton EPIC survey of NGC 2516, a southern low-metallicity open cluster with an age close to the Pleiades. The attained limiting sensitivity is of ~ 2.4 10^-15 erg sec^-1} cm^-2 in the 0.1--4.0 keV bandpass. This has been achieved by summing the data of the MOS and PN cameras of two distinct observations for a total exposure time of ~ 33 ks and by analyzing the summed data set with the wavelet detection algorithm developed at Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo (OAPA) that has yielded over 200 X-ray detections. Using data just from a single exposure or from a single camera would have reduced by a factor 2--4 our limiting sensitivity and would have resulted in 25--40% less X-ray detections. To date, 129 detections have as counterparts one or more of the 540 photometrically selected cluster members in the surveyed region, for a total of 147 likely detected members, with unique identification in 112 cases. We derive the X-ray luminosity functions (XLF) of NGC 2516 members of different spectral types and compare them with those of the more metal rich, approximately coeval Pleiades cluster, finding the NGC 2516 photometrically selected dG and dK stars less luminous than the Pleiades. The XLFs of the NGC 2516 and of the Pleiades dM stars are indistinguishable. We compare the XMM-Newton results with those recently obtained with Chandra.

The XMM-Newton SSC survey of the Galactic plane

Many different classes of X-ray sources contribute to the Galactic landscape at high energies. Although the nature of the most luminous X-ray emitters is now fairly well understood, the population of low-to-medium X-ray luminosity (LX = 10 27−34 erg s −1 ) sources remains much less studied, our knowledge being mostly based on the observation of local members. The advent of wide field and high sensitivity X-ray telescopes such as XMM-Newton now offers the opportunity to observe this low-to-medium LX population at large distances. We report on the results of a Galactic plane survey conducted by the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (SSC). Beyond its astrophysical goals, this survey aims at gathering a representative sample of identified X-ray sources at low latitude that can be used later on to statistically identify the rest of the serendipitous sources discovered in the Milky Way. The survey is based on 26 XMM-Newton observations, obtained at |b| S ) − log S curves in the soft and hard bands. In the soft band, the majority of the sources are positively identified with active coronae and the fraction of stars increases by about one order of magnitude from b = 60 ◦ to b = 0 ◦ at an X-ray flux of 2 × 10 −14 erg cm −2 s −1 . The hard band is dominated by extragalactic sources, but there is a small contribution from a hard Galactic population formed by CVs, HMXB candidates or γ-Cas-like systems and by some active coronae that are also detected in the soft band. At b = 0 ◦ the surface density of hard sources brighter than 1 × 10 −13 erg cm −2 s −1 steeply increases by one order of magnitude from l = 20 ◦ to the Galactic centre region (l = 0.9 ◦ ).

X-ray emission from a brown dwarf in the Pleiades

We report on the first detection of X-ray emission from a brown dwarf in the Pleiades, the M7-type Roque 14, obtained using the EPIC detectors on XMM‐Newton. This is the first X-ray detection of a brown dwarf intermediate in age between ≈12 and ≈320 Myr. The emission appears persistent, although we cannot rule out flare-like behaviour with a decay time-scale >4 ks. The time-averaged X-ray luminosity of L X ≈ 3.3 ± 0.8 × 10 27 erg s −1 and its ratios with the bolometric (L X/L bol ≈ 10 −3.05 ) and Hα (L X/L Hα ≈ 4.0) luminosities suggest magnetic activity similar to that of active main-sequence M dwarfs, such as the M7 old-disc star VB 8, although the suspected binary nature of Roque 14 merits further attention. No emission is detected from four proposed later-type Pleiades brown dwarfs, with upper limits to LX in the