Statistical characterization of the Chandra Source Catalog

  • Francis A. Primini
  • , John C. Houck
  • , John E. Davis
  • , Michael A. Nowak
  • , Ian N. Evans
  • , Kenny J. Glotfelty
  • , Craig S. Anderson
  • , Nina R. Bonaventura
  • , Judy C. Chen
  • , Stephen M. Doe
  • , Janet D. Evans
  • , Giuseppina Fabbiano
  • , Elizabeth C. Galle
  • , Danny G. Gibbs
  • , John D. Grier
  • , Roger M. Hain
  • , Diane M. Hall
  • , Peter N. Harbo
  • , Xiangqun He
  • , Margarita Karovska
  • Vinay L. Kashyap, Jennifer Lauer, Michael L. McCollough, Jonathan C. McDowell, Joseph B. Miller, Arik W. Mitschang, Douglas L. Morgan, Amy E. Mossman, Joy S. Nichols, David A. Plummer, Brian L. Refsdal, Arnold H. Rots, Aneta Siemiginowska, Beth A. Sundheim, Michael S. Tibbetts, David W. Van Stone, Sherry L. Winkelman, Panagoula Zografou

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

The first release of the Chandra Source Catalog (CSC) contains 95,000 X-ray sources in a total area of 0.75% of the entire sky, using data from 3900 separate ACIS observations of a multitude of different types of X-ray sources. In order to maximize the scientific benefit of such a large, heterogeneous data set, careful characterization of the statistical properties of the catalog, i.e., completeness, sensitivity, false source rate, and accuracy of source properties, is required. Characterization efforts of other large Chandra catalogs, such as the ChaMP Point Source Catalog or the 2 Mega-second Deep Field Surveys, while informative, cannot serve this purpose, since the CSC analysis procedures are significantly different and the range of allowable data is much less restrictive. We describe here the characterization process for the CSC. This process includes both a comparison of real CSC results with those of other, deeper Chandra catalogs of the same targets and extensive simulations of blank-sky and point-source populations.

Original languageEnglish
Article number37
JournalAstrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
Volume194
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2011

Keywords

  • catalogs
  • X-rays: general

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