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Description
The X-ray source populations within galaxies are typically difficult to identify and classify with X-ray data alone. The authors break through this barrier by combining deep new Chandra ACIS-I observations with extensive Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging from the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) of the M 31 disk. They detect 373 X-ray sources down to 0.35-8.0keV flux of 10<sup>-15</sup>erg/cm<sup>-2</sup>/s over 0.4deg<sup>2</sup>, 170 of which are reported for the first time. The authors identify optical counterpart candidates for 188 of the 373 sources, after using the HST data to correct the absolute astrometry of our Chandra imaging to 0.1". While 58 of these 188 are associated with point sources potentially in M 31, over half (107) of the counterpart candidates are extended background galaxies, 5 are star clusters, 12 are foreground stars, and 6 are supernova remnants. Sources with no clear counterpart candidate are most likely to be undetected background galaxies and low-mass X-ray binaries in M 31. The hardest sources in the 1-8keV band tend to be matched to background galaxies. The 58 point sources that are not consistent with foreground stars are bright enough that they could be high-mass stars in M 31; however, all but 8 have optical colors inconsistent with single stars, suggesting that many could be background galaxies or binary counterparts. For point-like counterparts, the authors examine the star formation history of the surrounding stellar populations to look for a young component that could be associated with a high-mass X-ray binary. The associated star formation histories for sources in the catalog are available in the linked table <a href="/W3Browse/chandra/m31phatsfh.html">M31PHATSFH</a>. In 2015 October, the authors observed the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) footprint with Chandra with 7 pointings. The footprints are overlaid on a GALEX NUV image of M 31, along with the corresponding HST coverage, in Figure 1 of the reference paper. At each pointing they observed for about 50ks in VF mode (Chandra ObsID 17008 to 17014 spanning 2015 Oct 06 to 2015 Oct 26). This table was created by the HEASARC in April 2020 based upon the <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/ApJS/239/13">CDS Catalog J/ApJS/239/13</a> file table4.dat and table6.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
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