NGC 4278 Chandra X-Ray Point Source Catalog

This table lists some of the properties of the discrete X-ray sources detected in the authors&#39; monitoring program of the globular cluster (GC)-rich elliptical galaxy, NGC 4278, observed with Chandra ACIS-S in six separate pointings, resulting in a co-added exposure of 458 ks. From this deep observation, 236 sources have been detected within the region overlapped by all observations, 180 of which lie within the D&lt;sub&gt;25&lt;/sub&gt; ellipse angular diameter of the galaxy. These 236 sources range in X-ray luminosity L&lt;sub&gt;X&lt;/sub&gt; from 3.5 x 10&lt;sup&gt;36&lt;/sup&gt; erg s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt; (with 3-sigma upper limit &lt;= 1 x 10&lt;sup&gt;37&lt;/sup&gt; erg s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt;) to ~2 x 10&lt;sup&gt;40&lt;/sup&gt; erg s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt;, including the central nuclear source which has been classified as a LINER. From optical data, 39 X-ray sources have been determined to be coincident with a GC, these sources tend to have high X-ray luminosity, with 10 of these sources exhibiting L&lt;sub&gt;X&lt;/sub&gt; &gt; 1 x 10&lt;sup&gt;38&lt;/sup&gt; erg s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt;. From X-ray source photometry, it has been determined that the majority of the 236 point sources that have well-constrained colors have values that are consistent with typical low-mass X-ray binary spectra, with 29 of the sources expected to be background objects from the log N-log S relation. There are 103 sources in this population that exhibit long-term variability, indicating that they are accreting compact objects. Three of these sources have been identified as transient candidates, with a further three possible transients. Spectral variations have also been identified in the majority of the source population, where a diverse range of variability has been identified, indicating that there are many different source classes located within this galaxy. This HEASARC table contains the master source list (Table 3 of the reference paper) and the X-ray properties of the sources in the co-added observations (Table 4 of the reference paper), but not the X-ray properties of the sources in the 6 individual observations (Tables 5-10 of the reference paper). The details of the six individual pointings used in this study, e.g., the Chandra ObsIDs, dates, exposure times and cleaned exposure times, are given in Table 1 of the reference paper, and repeated here: &lt;pre&gt; Obs. No.OBSID Date Exposure (s) Cleaned Exposure (s) 1 4741 2005 Feb 3 37462.0 37264.5 2 7077 2006 Mar 16 110303.8 107736.7 3 7078 2006 Jul 25 51433.2 48076.2 4 7079 2006 Oct 24 105071.7 102504.6 5 7081 2007 Feb 20 110724.0 107564.5 6 7080 2007 Apr 20 55824.8 54837.5 Total Co-added 470819.5 457984.0 &lt;/pre&gt; Notes. The pointing OBSID 7181 was taken before OBSID 7080, so to maintain the time sequence of the exposures these observation numbers have been labeled as above in the reference paper. The details of the energy bands and X-ray colors used in this study are given in Table 2 of the reference paper, and repeated here: &lt;pre&gt; Band/Color Energy Range/Definition Broad (B) 0.3-8 keV Soft (S) 0.3-2.5 keV Hard (H) 2.5-8 keV Soft 1 (S1) 0.3-0.9 keV Soft 2 (S2) 0.9-2.5 keV Conventional broad (Bc) 0.5-8 keV Conventional soft (Sc) 0.5-2 keV Conventional hard (Hc) 2-8 keV Hardness ratio HR (Hc-Sc)/(Hc+Sc) X-ray color C21 -log(S2) + log(S1) = log(S1/S2) X-ray color C32 -log(H) + log(S2) = log(S2/H) &lt;/pre&gt; This table was created by the HEASARC in April 2009 based on machine-readable versions of Tables 3 and 4 from the reference paper which were obtained from the ApJ web site. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration