Many different classes of X-ray sources contribute to the Galactic landscape at high energies. Although the nature of the most luminous X-ray emitters is now fairly well understood, the population of low-to-medium X-ray luminosity (LX=10^27-34^erg/s) sources remains much less studied, our knowledge being mostly based on the observation of local members. The advent of wide field and high sensitivity X-ray telescopes such as XMM-Newton now offers the opportunity to observe this low-to-medium LX population at large distances. We report on the results of a Galactic plane survey conducted by the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (SSC). Beyond its astrophysical goals, this survey aims at gathering a representative sample of identified X-ray sources at low latitude that can be used later on to statistically identify the rest of the serendipitous sources discovered in the Milky Way. The survey is based on 26 XMM-Newton observations, obtained at |b|<20{deg}, distributed over a large range in Galactic longitudes and covering a summed area of 4deg^2^. The flux limit of our survey is 2x10^-15^erg/cm^2^/s in the soft (0.5-2keV) band and 1x10^-14^erg/cm^2^/s in the hard (2-12keV) band. We detect a total of 1319 individual X-ray sources. Using optical follow-up observations supplemented by cross-correlation with a large range of multi-wavelength archival catalogues we identify 316 X-ray sources. This constitutes the largest group of spectroscopically identified low latitude X-ray sources at this flux level. The majority of the identified X-ray sources are active coronae with spectral types in the range A-M at maximum distances of ~1kpc. The number of identified active stars increases towards late spectral types, reaching a maximum at K. Using infrared colours we classify 18% of the stars as giants. The observed distributions of FX/FV, X-ray and infrared colours indicates that our sample is dominated by a young (100Myr) to intermediate (600Myr) age population with a small contribution of close main sequence or evolved binaries. We find other interesting objects such as cataclysmic variables (d~0.6-2kpc), low luminosity high mass stars (likely belonging to the class of {gamma}-Cas-like systems, d~1.5-7kpc), T Tauri and Herbig-Ae stars. A handful of extragalactic sources located in the highest Galactic latitude fields could be optically identified. For the 20 fields observed with the EPIC pn camera, we have constructed logN(>S)-logS curves in the soft and hard bands. In the soft band, the majority of the sources are positively identified with active coronae and the fraction of stars increases by about one order of magnitude from b=60{deg} to b=0{deg} at an X-ray flux of 2x10^-14^erg/cm^2^/s. The hard band is dominated by extragalactic sources, but there is a small contribution from a hard Galactic population formed by CVs, HMXB candidates or {gamma}-Cas-like systems and by some active coronae that are also detected in the soft band. At b=0{deg} the surface density of hard sources brighter than 1x10^-13^erg/cm^2^/s steeply increases by one order of magnitude from l=20{deg} to the Galactic centre region (l=0.9{deg}).
We report on a medium deep XMM-Newton survey of the Marano Field and optical follow-up observations. The mosaicked XMM-Newton pointings in this optical quasar survey field cover 0.6 deg2 with a total of 120ks good observation time. We detected 328 X-ray sources in total. The turnover flux of our sample is f_X_~5x10^-15^erg/cm2/s in the 0.2-10keV band. With VLT FORS1 and FORS2 spectroscopy we classified 96 new X-ray counterparts. The central 0.28deg^2^, where detailed optical follow-up observations were performed, contain 170 X-ray sources (detection likelihood ML>10), out of which 48 had already been detected by ROSAT. In this region we recover 23 out of 29 optically selected quasars. With a total of 110 classifications in our core sample we reach a completeness of ~65%. About one-third of the XMM-Newton sources are classified as type II AGN with redshifts mostly below 1.0. Furthermore, we detect five high redshift type II AGN (2.2<=z<=2.8).
We studied X-ray emission from young stars by analyzing the deep XMM-Newton observations of two regions of the Upper Scorpius association with an age of 5Myr. Based on near infrared and optical photometry we identified 22 Upper Scorpius photometric members among the 224 detected X-ray sources. We derived coronal properties of Upper Scorpius stars by performing X-ray spectral and timing analyses. The study of four strong and isolated stellar flares allowed us to derive the length of the flaring loops.
We report the results of an XMM-Newton observation of the Lagoon Nebula (M 8). Our EPIC images of this region reveal a cluster of point sources, most of which have optical counterparts inside the very young open cluster NGC 6530. The bulk of these X-ray sources are probably associated with low and intermediate mass pre-main sequence stars.
We report on the analysis of an archival observation of part of the {alpha} Persei cluster obtained with XMM-Newton. We detected 102 X-ray sources in the band 0.3-8.0 keV, of which 39 of them are associated with the cluster as evidenced by appropriate magnitudes and colors from Two Micron All Sky Survey photometry. We extend the X-ray luminosity distribution (XLD) for M dwarfs, to add to the XLD found for hotter dwarfs from spatially extensive surveys of the whole cluster by ROSAT. Some of the hotter stars are identified as a background, possible slightly older group of stars at a distance of approximately 500 pc.
We present X-ray spectral and timing analysis of members of the young open cluster IC 2391 observed with the XMM-Newton observatory. We detected 99 X-ray sources by analysing the summed data obtained from MOS1, MOS2 and pn detectors of the EPIC camera; 24 of them are members, or probable members, of the cluster. Stars of all spectral types have been detected, from the early-types to the late-M dwarfs.
We studied the X-ray properties of the young (~1-8Myr) open cluster around the hot (O8 III) star {lambda} Ori and compared them with those of the similarly-aged sigma Ori cluster to investigate possible effects of the different ambient environment. We analysed an XMM-Newton observation of the cluster using EPIC imaging and low-resolution spectral data. We studied the variability of detected sources, and performed a spectral analysis of the brightest sources in the field using multi-temperature models.
The following tables describe the results of a survey for X-ray (0.3-3 keV) sources in the young (30Myr) NGC 2547 open cluster using the XMM-Newton EPIC instrument. Table 1 lists the details of X-ray sources which are correlated with optical cluster members. Table 2 catalogues the cross-identifications with optical catalogues for the sources in Table 1 and derives their X-ray luminosities and X-ray to bolometric flux ratios. Table 3 lists the X-ray properties of sources which are uncorrelated with cluster members. Table 7 lists the correlations between cluster members detected by XMM-Newton and those detected 7 years earlier by the ROSAT HRI instrument, along with the X-ray luminosities and flux ratios as determined by the HRI.
We present the characteristics of the X-ray variability of stars in the cluster NGC 2516 as derived from XMM-Newton/EPIC/pn data. The X-ray variations on short (hours), medium (months), and long (years) time scales have been explored. We detected 303 distinct X-ray sources by analysing six EPIC/pn observations; 194 of them are members of the cluster. Stars of all spectral types, from the early-types to the late-M dwarfs, were detected.
We present the results of an XMM-Newton observation of the young (~2-4Myr) cluster around the hot star sigma Orionis. In a previous paper (Sanz-Forcada et al., 2004A&A...421..715S) we presented the analysis of the RGS spectrum of the central hot star; here we discuss the results of the analysis of the full EPIC field. We have detected 175 X-ray sources, 88 of which have been identified with cluster members, including very low-mass stars down to the substellar limit. We detected eleven new possible candidate members from the 2MASS (Cat. <II/246>) catalogue.
