Omega Centauri XMM-Newton X-Ray Point Source Catalog

Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) is one of the best studied objects in our galaxy. It is the most massive globular cluster (5.1 x 10⁶ solar masses), and is characterized by large core and half mass radii (154.88 and 250.8 arcseconds, respectively (Harris 1996, AJ, 112, 1487). The authors observed Omega Cen with XMM-Newton on August 13th, 2001. The observation lasted 37 ks and was performed with the medium filter. The authors detected 11 and 27 faint X-ray sources in the core and half mass radii, respectively, searching down to a luminosity of 1.3 x 10³¹ ergs s^-1 in the 0.5 - 5 keV range (for an assumed distance to Omega Cen of 5.3 kpc). Most sources have bolometric X-ray luminosities between ~ 10³¹ - 10³² ergs s^-1. The bulk of sources are hard and spectrally similar to CVs. The lack of soft faint sources might be related to the absence of millisecond pulsars in the cluster. The XMM-Newton observations reveal the presence of an excess of sources well outside the core of the cluster where several RS CVn binaries have already been found. The authors also analyzed a publicly available Chandra ACIS-I observation performed on January 24 - 25th, 2000, to improve the XMM-Newton source positions and to search for source intensity variations between the two data sets. 63 XMM-Newton sources have a Chandra counterpart, and 15 sources within the half-mass radius have shown time variability. Overall, the general properties of the faint X-ray sources in omega Cen suggest that they are predominantly CVs and active binaries (RS CVn or BY Dra). This table lists all 146 X-ray sources detected in the XMM-Newton observation above a maximum likelihood threshold in the 0.5 - 5 keV band of 12, including the 27 sources within the half-mass radius (listed in Table 1 of the reference paper), and the 119 sources outside the half-mass radius (listed in Table 2 of the reference paper). About 9 of the 27 sources within the half-mass radius are expected to be background sources, as are ~ 65 of the sources within 12.5 arcminutes of the cluster center, i.e., a significant fraction of the 146 total observed X-ray sources. For each XMM-Newton source, its position, count rate, correlation with previous X-ray observation, and their associated errors are given. The detailed spectral information given in Table 5 of the reference paper for 17 selected X-ray sources is however not included in this HEASARC table. This table was created by the HEASARC in May 2007 based on <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/400/521">CDS catalog J/A+A/400/521</a> files table1.dat, table2.dat and table3.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .