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Description
The authors have obtained 17 epochs of Chandra High Resolution Camera (HRC) snapshot images, each covering most of the M31 disk. The data cover a total baseline of ~2.5 yr and contain a mean effective exposure of 17 ks. The authors measured the mean fluxes and long-term light curves for 166 objects detected in these data. At least 25% of the sources show significant variability. The cumulative luminosity function (CLF) of the disk sources is well fitted by a power law with a slope comparable to those observed in typical elliptical galaxies. The CLF of the bulge is a broken power law similar to measurements made by previous surveys. The authors note several sources in the southwestern disk with L<sub>X</sub> > 10<sup>37</sup> ergs s<sup>-1</sup>. They cross-correlate all of their sources with published optical and radio catalogs, as well as new optical data, finding counterpart candidates for 55 sources. In addition, 17 sources are likely X-ray transients. Finally, the frequency of bright X-ray transients in the M31 bulge suggests that the ratio of neutron star to black hole primaries in low-mass X-ray binaries (NS/BH) is 1. The data for this project were originally part of a survey program to look for X-ray transients in M31. Nearly every month from 1999 November to 2001 February, Chandra took HRC-I images of five fields covering most of M31. Observations were then made every few months until 2002 June. The details of the 81 Chandra observations are summarized in Table 1 of the reference paper, which is available in a machine-readable form at <a href="http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/ftp/cats/J_ApJ/609/735/">http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/ftp/cats/J_ApJ/609/735/</a>. The authors combined all the data into three data sets using the task merge_all. One set contained the data for the northern half of the galaxy, another contained the southern half, and the last contained the center. The authors searched for sources in the three data sets using the CIAO task wavdetect. They ran this task searching for sources on four size scales: 1, 2, 4, and 8 pixels. The pixels in the merged images were 1 arcsecond in the central 18 arcmin by 18 arcmin and 2 arcsec outside of this region. By searching on several scales, wavdetect is able to overcome the large changes in the size of the Chandra PSF from about 0.5 arcsec near the center of the field to over 10 arcsec in the outer regions of the field. A total of 166 sources were detected above their 3.5-sigma detection threshold. This table was created by the HEASARC in September 2015 based on the <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/ApJ/609">CDS Catalog J/ApJ/609</a>, 735 file table2.dat . This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
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