The ROSAT Galactic plane survey: analysis of a low latitude area in Cygnus.
Abstract
The authors report on the analysis of a 64.5 square degree region of the ROSAT All-Sky Survey centered at l = 90°, b = 0°. Catalogue searches and follow-up optical observations reveal that in this low Galactic latitude region, 85% of the X-ray sources brighter than 0.03 cnt s-1 are identified with active coronae. F-K type stars represent 67% of the stellar identifications and M type stars account for 19%. The authors show that the number and distribution in flux of active coronae are consistent with current stellar population models and age dependent X-ray luminosity functions and they argue that most of the stars detected by ROSAT in this direction are younger than 1 Gyr. The relatively small number of unidentified sources at low X-ray flux puts strong constraints on the hypothetical X-ray emission from a population of old neutron stars and seems to be at variance with most models predictions.
- Publication:
-
Roentgenstrahlung from the Universe
- Pub Date:
- February 1996
- Bibcode:
- 1996rftu.proc..661M
- Keywords:
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- Galactic Plane: X-Ray Sources;
- X Rays: Stellar Coronae;
- X Rays: Neutron Stars