Chandra Point Sources in 18 Distant Galaxy Clusters

With the superb angular resolution of the Chandra Observatory, it is now possible to detect X-ray point sources, either embedded in galaxy clusters or along the cluster line of sight, which could not be resolved by previous instruments. This now allows studies of source counts in distant cluster fields. The authors want to analyze the inner region of clusters of galaxies to check for the presence of any over-density of X-ray point sources embedded in the gas diffuse emission. These point sources are possible AGN belonging to the clusters and could contaminate the cluster emission. The authors used a sample of 18 distant (0.25 &lt; z &lt; 1.01) galaxy clusters from the Chandra archive to construct the log N - log S relation, in both the soft and hard energy bands, for the X-ray point sources detected in the central cluster region to be compared with the counts of point sources detected in similarly deep fields without clusters. The authors find a ~2-sigma excess of cluster region sources at the bright end of the log N - log S distribution. The radial distribution of the brightest X-ray point sources confirms this excess and indicates that it is confined to the inner 0.5 Mpc of the cluster region. The results suggest the possible existence of X-ray sources belonging to the cluster (most probably AGN, given their 0.5-10 keV luminosity ranging from 10&lt;sup&gt;43&lt;/sup&gt; to 10&lt;sup&gt;44&lt;/sup&gt; erg s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt;): on average one every three clusters. Unlike previous studies, which have mainly investigated the point-source population in the vicinity of the galaxy clusters, the present study analyzes the content of point sources within the 1 Mpc region covered by the cluster extent. This work confirms the findings of other investigators who analyzed the central 1 Mpc region of more massive clusters and/or groups in a similar redshift range. The X-ray source excess found here is much smaller than the excess of radio galaxies found recently in high-z X-ray selected clusters, possibly due to the better sensitivity of the radio observations. The properties of the clusters and of the Chandra exposures in which they were observed are given in Table 1 of the reference paper, and are reproduced below: &lt;pre&gt; Cluster Name z RA (J2000) Dec ObsID ACIS Mode Exp N_H L_sb L_hb h m s d &#39; &quot; ks [units are below] Abell 2125 0.246 15 41 12 +66 16 01 2207 I VF 79.7 2.77 0.13 0.56 ZW CL 1454.8+2233 0.258 14 57 15 +22 20 33 4192 I VF 91.4 3.22 0.23 0.74 MS 1008.1-1224 0.302 10 10 32 -12 39 23 926 I VF 44.2 6.74 0.44 1.57 ZW CL 0024.0+1652 0.394 00 26 35 +17 09 39 929 S VF 36.7 4.19 0.34 2.22 MS 1621.5+2640 0.426 16 23 36 +26 34 21 546 I F 30.0 3.59 0.81 3.41 RXJ 1701.3+6414 0.453 17 01 24 +64 14 10 547 I VF 49.5 2.59 0.64 2.67 CL 1641+4001 0.464 16 41 53 +40 01 46 3575 I VF 44.0 1.02 0.67 2.62 V 1524.6+0957 0.516 15 24 40 +09 57 48 1664 I VF 49.9 2.92 0.89 3.29 MS 0451.6-0305 0.539 04 54 12 -03 00 53 902 S F 41.5 5.18 0.73 4.12 V 1121+2327 0.562 11 20 57 +23 26 27 1660 I VF 66.9 1.30 0.73 3.00 MS 2053.7-0449 0.583 20 56 21 -04 37 51 1667 I VF 43.5 4.96 1.32 4.91 V 1221+4918 0.700 12 21 26 +49 18 30 1662 I VF 79.4 1.44 1.18 4.62 MS 1137.5+6625 0.782 11 40 22 +66 08 18 536 I VF 117.5 1.18 0.81 4.04 RDCSJ 1317+2911 0.805 13 17 21 +29 11 19 2228 I VF 111.3 1.04 0.85 3.59 RDCSJ 1350+6007 0.805 13 50 48 +60 06 54 2229 I VF 58.3 1.76 1.77 7.26 RXJ 1716.4+6708 0.813 17 16 49 +67 08 26 548 I F 51.5 3.71 2.17 9.45 MS 1054.4-0321 0.830 10 56 59 -03 37 37 512 S F 67.5 3.67 1.07 6.61 WARPJ 1415.1+3612 1.013 14 15 11 +36 12 00 4163 I VF 89.2 1.10 1.93 7.54 &lt;/pre&gt; where Exp is the Chandra exposure time in ks corresponding to the nominal exposure filtered to exclude time periods of high background, N_H is the Galactic hydrogen column density in the direction of the cluster of galaxies, in units of 10&lt;sup&gt;20&lt;/sup&gt; cm&lt;sup&gt;-2&lt;/sup&gt;, and L_sb and L_hb are the limiting luminosities in units of 10&lt;sup&gt;42&lt;/sup&gt; erg s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt; for point sources in the clusters in the 0.5-2.0 keV and 2-10 keV energy bands, respectively. This table was created by the HEASARC in September 2010 based on the electronic version of Table 2 from the reference paper which was obtained from the CDS, their catalog J/A+A/462/449. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration