NGC 6231 Chandra X-Ray Point Source Catalog

NGC 6231 is a massive young star cluster, near the center of the Sco OB1 association. While its OB members are well studied, its low-mass population has received little attention. In the reference paper, the authors present high-spatial resolution Chandra ACIS-I X-ray data, wherein they detect 1,613 point X-ray sources. Their main aim was to clarify the global properties of NGC 6231 down to low masses through a detailed membership assessment, and to study the cluster stars&#39; spatial distribution, the origin of their X-ray emission, the cluster age and formation history, and its initial mass function. The authors use X-ray data, complemented by optical and IR data, to establish cluster membership. The spatial distribution of different stellar subgroups also provides highly significant constraints on cluster membership, as does the distribution of X-ray hardness. In their study, the authors perform spectral modeling of group-stacked X-ray source spectra. The X-ray properties of the sources detected in the Chandra observations of NGC 6231, and their cross-identifications in the catalogs of Sung, Sana, and Bessell (2013 AJ, 145, 37; hereafter SSB); VPHAS+ (Drew et al., 2014, MNRAS, 440, 2036); and 2MASS (&lt;a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/II/246"&gt;CDS Cat. II/246&lt;/a&gt;), and information about membership, H-alpha or IR excess, mass and luminosity are also provided. SSB derive a distance modulus for NGC 6231 of 11.0 (1,585 pc), a reddening E(B - V) = 0.47, and a nearly normal reddening law with R = 3.2. The present authors adopt these values for this work. NGC 6231 was observed twice in X-rays with the ACIS-I detector on-board the Chandra X-ray Observatory on 2005, July 3 to 4 (ObsId 5372) and 16 to 17 (ObsID 6291), respectively. The two pointings share the same center (aimpoint) but were performed with a different roll angle. Effective exposure times for the observations were 76.19 and 44.39 ks, respectively, making the total exposure time 120.58 ks. The data were filtered to retain the energy band 0.3 - 8.0 keV, and the full-field lightcurves were inspected to search for high-background periods, but none were found. Exposure maps were computed using standard CIAO software tasks. To these prepared datasets, the authors applied the source detection software PWDetect, a wavelet-based detection algorithm developed at INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo. The PWDetect version used here is a modified one, able to detect sources in combined datasets, thus taking full advantage of the deep total exposure. The detection threshold was chosen such as to yield ten spurious detections in the field of view (FOV), for the given background counts. This is a more relaxed constraint than the more usual limit of one spurious detection per field, but is justified when the lowered threshold allows the detection of more than one hundred additional faint sources, as it was the case here or in the COUP Program&#39;s Orion data. This HEASARC table contains the list of 1,613 detected X-ray point sources and information about their optical and IR counterparts, where known. It does not contain the 275 additional candidate cluster members (where their candidacy was based on their having H-alpha or IR excesses) which lack X-ray counterparts and that were also listed in Table B.2 of the reference paper. This table was created by the HEASARC in December 2016 based on &lt;a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/596/A82"&gt;CDS Catalog J/A+A/596/A82&lt;/a&gt; file tableb.dat, which is the merger of tables B.1 (the list of 1,613 X-ray sources) and B.2 (the list of 1,888 optical and near-IR identifications of X-ray sources and of IR- and H-alpha-excess stars) from the reference paper, but excluding the 275 stars listed in the latter whose candidacy was based on their having H-alpha or IR excesses and which lack X-ray counterparts. # This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Tags: __
Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration