Hunting for Buried Treasure: Prospecting for a Population of Compact Objects in the Galactic Center
Abstract
I describe the observational campaign we have undertaken to determine the nature of the faint discrete X-ray source population discovered in the Galactic Center (GC). Data obtained to date includes a deep Chandra survey; deep, high resolution IR imaging from VLT/ISAAC, CTIO/ISPI, and the UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey; and IR spectroscopy from VLT/ISAAC and IRTF/SpeX.
Astrometric cross-correlation of our ISAAC imaging with the revised X-ray source position catalogs from Muno et al. (2003, 2006) results in a statistically significant excess in the number of candidate IR counterparts to the 130 X-ray sources encompassed within our 26 ISAAC fields. Cross-correlation of our ISPI imaging of the central 17' square around Sgr A*, an area containing 4339 Chandra sources, with the X-ray catalog reveals 2214 candidate IR counterparts. We explore the likelihood of these astrometric matches being actual physical counterparts and find that, statistically, 443+/-56 are likely to be true counterparts. We categorize these matches by X-ray and IR characteristics (hardness, colour, magnitude). After statistical analysis, we find that by selecting carefully from the subset of X-ray hard, highly reddened candidate matches, we can identify 91 IR sources which have a 45% probability of being true physical counterparts. In both the ISAAC and ISPI data we find an over-abundance of relatively unextinguished, bright, blue candidate counterparts to the X-ray sources as compared to the IR field star population. It is likely that these matches are dominated by local, massive X-ray active stars. We will use the multi-object IR spectrograph FLAMINGOS-2 on Gemini-South to perform a spectroscopic survey of the identified candidate counterparts, to search for emission line signatures which are a hallmark of accreting binaries. By determining the nature of these X-ray sources, this FLAMINGOS-2 Galactic Center Survey will have a dramatic impact on our knowledge of the Galactic accreting binary population.- Publication:
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AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division #11
- Pub Date:
- March 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010HEAD...11.4406B