The Chandra Source Catalog — A Billion X-ray Photons
Abstract
By combining Chandra's sub-arcsecond on-axis spatial resolution and low instrumental background with consistent data processing, the Chandra Source Catalog (CSC) delivers a wide variety of uniformly calibrated properties and science ready data products for detected sources over four dex of flux. The second major release of the catalog, CSC 2.0, includes measured properties for more than 315,000 unique X-ray sources in the sky, allowing statistical analysis of large samples, as well as individual source studies. Extracted properties are provided for more than 925,000 individual observation detections identified in ~10,000 Chandra ACIS and HRC-I imaging observations released publicly prior to the end of 2014. CSC 2.0 also includes photometric properties for roughly 1,300 highly extended (> 30") sources, together with surface brightness polygons for several contour levels. For each X-ray detection and source, the catalog provides a detailed set of more than 100 tabulated positional, spatial, photometric, spectral, and temporal properties (each with associated lower and upper confidence intervals and measured in multiple energy bands). The catalog Bayesian aperture photometry code produces robust photometric probability density functions (PDFs), even in crowded fields and for low count detections. CSC 2.0 additionally provides an extensive selection of individual observation, stacked-observation, detection region, and master source FITS data products (e.g., responses, PSFs, spectra, light curves, aperture photometry PDFs) that are immediately usable for further detailed scientific analysis. We describe the content and characteristics of the catalog, discuss the updates that significantly enhance the scientific utility of CSC 2.0, and demonstrate how the catalog content can be immediately and effectively utilized for scientific investigations. This work has been supported by NASA under contract NAS 8-03060 to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for operation of the Chandra X-ray Center.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #235
- Pub Date:
- January 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AAS...23515405E