Description
The ACIS instrument on board the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has been used to carry out the first systematic study of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) in M 87 (NGC 4486), the giant elliptical galaxy near the dynamical center of the Virgo Cluster. These images - with a total exposure time of 154 ks - are the deepest X-ray observations obtained as of 2004 of M 87. The authors identified 174 X-ray point sources, (contained in this Browse table) of which ~ 150 are likely LMXBs. This LMXB catalog was combined with deep F475W and F850LP images taken with ACS on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) (as part of the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey) to examine the connection between LMXBs and globular clusters in M87. Of the 1688 globular clusters in the authors' catalog, a fraction f<sub>X</sub> = 3.6% +/- 0.5% contain an LMXB. M 87 (NGC 4486) was observed with the Chandra Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) for 121 ks on 2002 July 5-6. In this table, only the S3 chip data are used. The data were processed following the CIAO data reduction threads, including a correction for charge transfer inefficiency (CTI). In addition, the authors used 38 ks of archival ACIS observations of M 87 taken on 2000 July 29. These data were processed in a fashion similar to the 2002 July data, except that no CTI correction was possible because the data were telemetered in graded mode. All reductions were carried out with CIAO, version 2.3, coupled with CALDB, version 2.21. In order to combine the event files into a single image for point-source detection, the authors obtained relative offsets by matching the celestial coordinates of two X-ray point sources. The relative offset was ~ 0.5". The total exposure time of the co-added image, excluding four background flares totaling ~ 2.5 ks, was 154 ks. This table was created by the HEASARC in March 2007 based on the CDS table J/ApJ/613/279, file table1.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
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