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Description
In a deep 60 ks Chandra ACIS-I X-ray observation of the very young (~ 1.5 - 2.0 Myr) cluster NGC 6530 on 2001 Jun 18-19, the authors have detected 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 low-mass stars. This is a significant enlargement of the known NGC 6530 stellar population with respect to previous optical studies, including H-alpha surveys. They identify 220 X-ray sources with catalogued stars down to V = 17, while most unidentified sources have fainter counterparts. Moreover, they find an infrared counterpart in the 2MASS (CDS. No. <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 - 1.5 Myr PMS stars, with masses down to 0.5 - 1.5 solar masses (M_sun). The pointing direction for the Chandra observation was the NGC 6530 cluster center at RA = 18^h 04^m 24.38^s, Dec = -24^o 21' 05.8" (J2000.0). The PWDetect algorithm found 884 X-ray point sources in the ACIS-I image above a detection significance threshold chosen to ensure only 1 spurious detection on the average. The Sung et al. (2000, AJ, 120, 333; <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/AJ/120/333">CDS Cat. <J/AJ/120/333></a>) = SCB Catalog of optical objects against which the X-ray point source list was compared doed not cover the easternmost 2.25' of the ACIS FOV (RAs later than 18^h 04^m 52^s), notice, which comprises about 13% of the ACIS FOV. There are 46 detected X-ray sources (5.2% of the total) in the area not covered by the SCB Catalog. A matching distance of 4 times the X-ray error radius or 2.0" (whichever is greater) was used to identify optical counterparts to the X-ray sources, after a systematic shift between the X-ray and optical positions of -0.4" and 1.84" in RA and declination, respectively, was applied. The authors estimate that as many as 28 of their 220 optical identifications may be spurious, preferentially those in the outer parts of the FOV where the positional uncertainties are larger. There are 8792 'good' 2MASS sources in the ACIS FOV. A matching distance of 4 times the X-ray error radius or 1.5" (whichever is greater) was used to identify 2MASS counterparts to the X-ray sources, after systematic corrections of 0.3" and 1.75" in RA and declination, respectively, were applied to the 'raw' X-ray positions. There are 13 cases where there are two possible IR counterparts to a single X-ray source, and 2 cases where there are three possible IR Counterparts to a single X-ray source. (Notice that, in such cases, this table contains multiple entries, one for each counterpart, and hence there are 901 entries compared to 884 X-ray sources.) The authors conclude that the plausible number of spurious X-ray-2MASS identifications is between 30 and 50. Overall, there remain 146 X-ray sources with no optical or IR identification. This table was created by the HEASARC in December 2006 based on CDS table J/ApJ/608/781, the file table1.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
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