The XMM-Newton serendipitous survey ^*

II. First results from the AXIS high galactic latitude medium sensitivity survey

¹ Instituto de Física de Cantabria (CSIC-UC), 39005 Santander, Spain
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
³ Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
⁴ Max-Planck Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Postfach 1312, 85741 Garching, Germany
⁵ Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL, Holmbury St Mary, Dorking, Surrey RH5 6NT, UK
⁶ Centre d'Étude Spatiale des Rayonnements, 9 avenue du Colonel Roche, 31028 Toulouse Cedex 04, France
⁷ Astrophysikalishes Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
⁸ Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, via Brera 28, 20121 Milano, Italy
⁹ Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Université, 67000 Strasbourg, France
¹⁰ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
¹¹ Dipartimento di Astronomia e Scienza dello Spazio, Università di Firenze, Largo E. Fermi 5, 50125 Firenze, Italy
¹² Department of Physics, University of Bristol, Royal Fort, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1TL, UK

Corresponding author: X. Barcons, barcons@ifca.unican.es

Received: 15 October 2001
Accepted: 7 November 2001

Abstract

We present the first results on the identifications of a medium sensitivity survey (X-ray flux limit in the 0.5–4.5 keV band) at high galactic latitude () carried out with the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory within the AXIS observing programme. This study is being conducted as part of the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre activities towards the identification of the sources in the X-ray serendipitous sky survey. The sample contains 29 X-ray sources in a solid angle of (source density sources ), out of which 27 (93%) have been identified. The majority of the sources are broad-line AGN (19), followed by narrow emission line X-ray emitting galaxies (6, all of which turn out to be AGN), 1 nearby non-emission line galaxy (NGC 4291) and 1 active coronal star. Among the identified sources we find 2 broad-absorption line QSOs ( and ), which constitute ~10% of the AGN population at this flux level, similar to optically selected samples. Identifications of a further 10 X-ray sources fainter than our survey limit are also presented.