Issue |
Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser.
Volume 142, Number 1, February II 2000
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 41 - 57 | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/aas:2000136 | |
Published online | 15 February 2000 |
A ROSAT PSPC catalogue of X-ray sources in the SMC region*
1
Max–Planck–Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse, 85748 Garching, Germany
2
University of Western Sydney Nepean, P.O. Box 10, Kingswood, NSW 2747, Australia
3
Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO, P.O. Box 76, Epping, NSW 2121, Australia
4
Astronomical Institute, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 403, NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
5
Center for High Energy Astrophysics, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 403, NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Send offprint request to: F. Haberl e-mail: fwh@mpe.mpg.de
Received:
8
October
1999
Accepted:
19
November
1999
We present a catalogue of 517 discrete X-ray sources in a
field covering the Small Magellanic Cloud
(SMC). The catalogue was derived from the pointed ROSAT PSPC observations
performed between October 1991 and May 1994 and is complementary to the
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) catalogue published by Haberl & Pietsch (1999).
We followed the same identification scheme and used, among other
information,
X-ray hardness ratios and spatial extent to classify unknown sources as
candidates for active galactic nuclei (AGN), foreground stars, supernova
remnants (SNRs), supersoft sources (SSSs) and X-ray binaries. For 158
sources a likely source type is given, from which 46 sources are suggested
as background AGN (including candidates resulting from a comparison of
X-ray and radio images).
Nearly all of the X-ray binaries known in the SMC were detected
in ROSAT PSPC observations; most of them with luminosities below
1036 erg s-1 suggesting that the fraction of high luminosity X-ray binary
systems in the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) is not significantly larger than in our
galaxy. Seventeen X-ray sources are associated with
SNRs found in earlier work and we suggest here two additional extended
sources as SNR candidates. Three very soft sources are newly classified as
SSSs from which one is identified with the symbiotic star
LIN 358 in the SMC.
Key words: catalogues / ISM: supernova remnants / galaxies: magellanic clouds / galaxies: stellar content / X-rays: galaxies / X-rays: stars
© European Southern Observatory (ESO), 2000