Description
In a deep 60ks Chandra ACIS X-ray observation of the very young cluster NGC 6530, we detect 884 X-ray point sources and argue that a very large fraction of them (90%-95%) must be pre-main-sequence (PMS) cluster members, mostly of low masses. This is a significant enlargement of the known NGC 6530 stellar population with respect to previous optical studies, including H{alpha} surveys. We identify 220 X-ray sources with catalogued stars down to V=17, while most unidentified sources have fainter counterparts. Moreover, we find an infrared counterpart in the 2MASS (<II/246>) catalog for 731 X-ray sources. The optically identified cluster X-ray sources are found in a band in the H-R diagram above the main sequence, in the locus of 0.5-1.5Myr PMS stars, with masses down to 0.5-1.5M_{sun}_.
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