arXiv:astro-ph/0601627 v1 26 Jan 2006     Draft version January 30, 2006

A CHANDRA CATALOG OF X-RAY SOURCES IN THE CENTRAL 150 PC OF THE GALAXY

M. P. Muno, 1,2 F. E. Bauer, 3,4 R. M. Bandyopadhyay, 5,6 and Q. D. Wang 7,8
Draft version January 30, 2006

ABSTRACT

We present the catalog of X-ray sources detected in a shallow Chandra
survey of the inner 2deg x 0.8deg of the Galaxy, and in two deeper
observations of the Radio Arches and Sgr B2. The catalog contains 1352
objects that are highly-absorbed (NH_I = 10^22 cm^-2) and are therefore
likely to lie near the Galactic center (D=8 kpc), and 549 less-absorbed
sources that lie within <6 kpc of Earth. Based on the inferred luminosities
of the X-ray sources and the expected numbers of various classes of
objects, we suggest that the sources with LX . 10^33 erg/s that comprise
~90% of the catalog are cataclysmic variables, and that the ~100 brighter
objects are accreting neutron stars and black holes, young isolated
pulsars, and Wolf-Rayet and O stars in colliding-wind binaries. We find
that the spatial distribution of X-ray sources matches that of the old
stellar population observed in the infrared, which supports our suggestion
that most of the X-ray sources are old cataclysmic variables.  However,
we find that there is an apparent excess of ~10 bright sources in the Radio
Arches region.  That region is already known to be the site of recent
star formation, so we suggest that the bright sources in this region are
young high-mass X-ray binaries, pulsars, or WR/O star binaries. We briefly
discuss some astrophysical questions that this catalog can be used
to address.

See also:
2009ApJS..181..110M