XMM-COSMOS Catalog of Optical/IR Counterparts

This table contains the final optical identifications of the medium-depth (~60 ks), contiguous (2 degree&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;) XMM-Newton survey of the COSMOS field. XMM-Newton has detected ~1800 X-ray sources down to limiting fluxes of ~5 x 10&lt;sup&gt;-16&lt;/sup&gt;, ~3 x 10&lt;sup&gt;-15&lt;/sup&gt;, and ~7 x 10&lt;sup&gt;-15&lt;/sup&gt; erg cm&lt;sup&gt;-2&lt;/sup&gt; s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt; in the 0.5-2 keV, 2-10 keV, and 5-10 keV bands, respectively (~1 x 10&lt;sup&gt;-15&lt;/sup&gt;, ~6 x 10&lt;sup&gt;-15&lt;/sup&gt;, and ~1 x 10&lt;sup&gt;-14&lt;/sup&gt; erg cm&lt;sup&gt;-2&lt;/sup&gt; s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt;, in the three bands, respectively, over 50% of the area). The work is complemented by an extensive collection of multi-wavelength data from 24 microns to UV, available from the COSMOS survey, for each of the X-ray sources, including spectroscopic redshifts for &gt;~50% of the sample, and high-quality photometric redshifts for the rest. The XMM-Newton and multi-wavelength flux limits are well matched: 1760 (98%) of the X-ray sources have optical counterparts, 1711 (~95%) have IRAC counterparts, and 1394 (~78%) have MIPS 24 um detections. Thanks to the redshift completeness (almost 100%) the authors were able to constrain the high-luminosity tail of the X-ray luminosity function confirming that the peak of the number density of log L&lt;sub&gt;X&lt;/sub&gt; &gt; 44.5 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is at z ~ 2. Spectroscopically identified obscured and unobscured AGNs, as well as normal and star-forming galaxies, present well-defined optical and infrared properties. The authors devised a robust method to identify a sample of ~150 high-redshift (z &gt; 1), obscured AGN candidates for which optical spectroscopy is not available. They were able to determine that the fraction of the obscured AGN population at the highest (L&lt;sub&gt;X&lt;/sub&gt; &gt; 10&lt;sup&gt;44&lt;/sup&gt; erg s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt;) X-ray luminosity is ~15%-30% when selection effects are taken into account, providing an important observational constraint for X-ray background synthesis. The authors studied in detail the optical spectrum and the overall spectral energy distribution of a prototypical Type 2 QSO (source number 2028), caught in a stage transitioning from being starburst dominated to AGN dominated, which was possible to isolate only thanks to the combination of X-ray and infrared observations. This table was created by the HEASARC in July 2010 based on the electronic version of Table 2 from the paper which was obtained from the Astrophysical Journal web site. &lt;p&gt; The HEASARC has made some changes to this material in order to make it more compliant with CDS/IAU Nomenclature and HEASARC table standards: &lt;p&gt; (i) The original naming convention suggested by the authors used a prefix of &#39;XMMC_&#39; and the J2000.0 RA and Dec position in decimal degrees to 10&lt;sup&gt;-5&lt;/sup&gt; degrees precision, e.g., XMMC_150.10515+1.98082&#39;; the HEASARC has replaced these names by alternative new ones (in the alt_name parameter) of the form &#39;XMMU JHHMMSS.s+DDMMSS&#39; where the prefix is the usual one for XMM-Newton sources and the remainder of the field is the J2000.0 equatorial coordinates truncated to 0.1 seconds of time in RA and to 1 arcsecond in Declination; &lt;p&gt; (ii) We have used for the alt_name parameter the naming convention recommended by the Dictionary of Nomenclature of Celestial Objects for XMM-COSMOS sources, viz. the &quot;XMMC&#39; prefix and the source (XID) number, e.g., &quot;XMMC 2028&#39;. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration