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Description
The authors observed the nearby, low-density globular cluster M71 (NGC 6838) with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory to study its faint X-ray populations. Five X-ray sources were found inside the cluster core radius, including the known eclipsing binary millisecond pulsar (MSP) PSR J1953+1846A. The X-ray light curve of the source coincident with this MSP shows marginal evidence for periodicity at the binary period of 4.2hr. Its hard X-ray spectrum and luminosity resemble those of other eclipsing binary MSPs in 47 Tuc, suggesting a similar shock origin of the X-ray emission. A further 24 X-ray sources were found within the half-mass radius r<sub>h</sub>, reaching to a limiting luminosity of 1.5 x 10<sup>30</sup> ergs/s (0.3-8 keV). From a radial distribution analysis, the authors find that 18 +/- 6 of these 29 sources are associated with M71, somewhat more than predicted, and that 11 +/- 6 are background sources, both Galactic and extragalactic. M71 appears to have more X-ray sources in the range L<sub>X</sub> = 10<sup>30</sup> - 10<sup>31</sup> ergs/s than expected by extrapolating from other studied clusters using either mass or collision frequency. In their paper, the authors explore the spectra and variability of these sources and describe the results of ground-based optical counterpart searches. The authors obtained a 52.4 ks Chandra observation (ObsID 5434) of M71 (nominal center of cluster at J2000.0 RA and Dec of 19 53 46.1 +18 46 42) on 2004 December 20-21 using the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) in very faint (VF), timed-exposure mode with a 3.141s frame time. They searched for X-ray sources in the observed field by employing techniques described in Tennant (2006, AJ, 132, 1372) which use a circular Gaussian approximation to the point-spread function (PSF). Within twice the M71 half-mass radius (r<sub>h</sub> = 1.65 arcminutes), they set the signal-to-noise threshold (S/N) for detection to 2.0, but also required the number of source counts to be at least 5 times the statistical uncertainty in the local background estimate. The empirical relation derived by Tennant, C<sub>min</sub> = (S/N)<sup>2</sup>/0.81, then implies a point-source sensitivity limit of about 4.9 counts for r<sub>M71</sub> <= 2r<sub>h</sub> and in the energy band 0.3-8.0 keV. Because of the increase in PSF size with off-axis distance and the associated increase in background within a detection cell, for R<sub>M71</sub> > 2r<sub>h</sub> they set the S/N threshold for detection to 2.4 and again required the number of source counts to be at least 5 times the statistical uncertainty in the local background estimate. The point-source sensitivity limit thus rises to about seven counts. This table contains 63 X-ray sources and their optical/infrared counterpart information, if any, for those sources with r<sub>M71</sub> <= 2r_h which are listed in Table 1 of the reference paper: these sources have name prefixes of s01 to s63. It also contains 73 X-ray sources and their optical/infrared counterpart information, if any, for those sources with r<sub>M71</sub> > 2r_h which are listed in Table 2 of the reference paper: these sources have name prefixes of ss01 to ss59 and is01 to is14. Each entry in this table corresponds to an X-ray source if there is no counterpart information or only a single identified counterpart or to a particular X-ray source and counterpart match if there are multiple counterpart identifications. There are thus 165 entries in this HEASARC table corresponding to 136 X-ray sources. This table was created by the HEASARC in March 2011 based on the electronic version of Tables 1 and 2 of the reference paper which were obtained from the CDS (their catalog J/ApJ/687/1019 files table1.dat and table2.dat). Some of the values for the alt_name parameter in the HEASARC's implementation of this table were corrected in April 2018. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
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