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Description
This table contains the first results from the XMM-Newton Galactic Plane Survey (XGPS). In the first phase of the program, 22 pointings were used to cover a region of approximately 3 square degrees between 19 and 22 degrees in Galactic Longitude and +/-0.6 degrees in Galactic Latitude. In total, over 400 point X-ray sources have been resolved at >=5-sigma significance, down to a flux limit of ~2 x 10<sup>-14</sup> erg/s/cm<sup>2</sup> (2-10 keV). The sources exhibit a very wide range of spectral hardness, with interstellar absorption identified as a major influence. The source populations detected in the soft (0.4 - 2 keV) band and hard (2 - 6 keV) band show surprisingly little overlap. The majority of the soft sources appear to be associated with relatively nearby stars with active stelaar coronae, judging from their high coincidence with bright stellar counterparts. The combination of the XGPS measurements in the hard X-ray band with the results from earlier surveys carried out by ASCA and Chandra reveals the form of the low-latitude X-ray source counts over 4 decades of flux. It appears that extragalactic sources dominate below ~10<sup>-13</sup> erg/s/cm<sup>2</sup> (2-10 keV), with a predominantly Galactic source population present above this flux threshold. The nature of the faint Galactic population observed by XMM-Newton remains uncertain, although cataclysmic variables and RS CVn systems may contribute substantially. This table was created by the HEASARC in February 2005 based on <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/MNRAS/351/31/tablea1">CDS Catalog J/MNRAS/351/31/tablea1</a>.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
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