The XMM-Newton serendipitous survey

VII. The third XMM-Newton serendipitous source catalogue^⋆,⋆⋆

¹ Department of Physics & AstronomyUniversity of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH UK
² Université de Toulouse, UPS-OMP, IRAP, 31058 Toulouse, France
e-mail: Natalie.Webb@irap.omp.eu
³ CNRS, IRAP, 9 Av. Colonel Roche, BP 44346, 31028 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
⁴ Laboratoire AIM, CEA-IRFU/CNRS/Université Paris Diderot, Service d’Astrophysique, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
⁵ Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria (CSIC-UC), Avenida de los Castros, 39005 Santander, Spain
⁶ INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, via Brera 28, 20121 Milano, Italy
⁷ Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstr., 85748 Garching, Germany
⁸ Observatoire astronomique, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, UMR 7550, 11 rue de l’Université, 67000 Strasbourg, France
⁹ XMM SOC, ESAC, Apartado 78, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain
¹⁰ Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
¹¹ Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Holbury St Mary, Dorking, Surrey RH5 6NT, UK
¹² Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, 8 College Road, Durham, NH 03824-2600, USA

Received: 27 April 2015
Accepted: 26 January 2016

Abstract

Context. Thanks to the large collecting area (3 ×~1500 cm² at 1.5 keV) and wide field of view (30′ across in full field mode) of the X-ray cameras on board the European Space Agency X-ray observatory XMM-Newton, each individual pointing can result in the detection of up to several hundred X-ray sources, most of which are newly discovered objects. Since XMM-Newton has now been in orbit for more than 15 yr, hundreds of thousands of sources have been detected.

Aims. Recently, many improvements in the XMM-Newton data reduction algorithms have been made. These include enhanced source characterisation and reduced spurious source detections, refined astrometric precision of sources, greater net sensitivity for source detection, and the extraction of spectra and time series for fainter sources, both with better signal-to-noise. Thanks to these enhancements, the quality of the catalogue products has been much improved over earlier catalogues. Furthermore, almost 50% more observations are in the public domain compared to 2XMMi-DR3, allowing the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre to produce a much larger and better quality X-ray source catalogue.

Methods. The XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre has developed a pipeline to reduce the XMM-Newton data automatically. Using the latest version of this pipeline, along with better calibration, a new version of the catalogue has been produced, using XMM-Newton X-ray observations made public on or before 2013 December 31. Manual screening of all of the X-ray detections ensures the highest data quality. This catalogue is known as 3XMM.

Results. In the latest release of the 3XMM catalogue, 3XMM-DR5, there are 565 962 X-ray detections comprising 396 910 unique X-ray sources. Spectra and lightcurves are provided for the 133 000 brightest sources. For all detections, the positions on the sky, a measure of the quality of the detection, and an evaluation of the X-ray variability is provided, along with the fluxes and count rates in 7 X-ray energy bands, the total 0.2–12 keV band counts, and four hardness ratios. With the aim of identifying the detections, a cross correlation with 228 catalogues of sources detected in all wavebands is also provided for each X-ray detection.

Conclusions. 3XMM-DR5 is the largest X-ray source catalogue ever produced. Thanks to the large array of data products associated with each detection and each source, it is an excellent resource for finding new and extreme objects.