Discovery of a major new contributor to the X-ray background at very faint X-ray fluxes

Previous abstract Next abstract

Session 119 -- Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies, X-Ray Observationsd
Oral presentation, Thursday, 12, 1995, 2:00pm - 3:30pm

[119.04] Discovery of a major new contributor to the X-ray background at very faint X-ray fluxes

L.R. Jones (NASA/GSFC), I.McHardy, M.Merrifield (University of Southampton, UK), K.O.Mason, G.Branduardi-Raymont, P.Smith (MSSL, UK), R.Abraham (DAO, Canada), G. Luppino (IOA, Hawaii)

We describe results from the deepest optically identified ROSAT survey yet performed, designed to resolve as much of the soft X-ray background as possible. The ROSAT PSPC exposure of 110 ksec reaches a limiting X-ray flux of 2x10$^{-15}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ (0.5-2 keV). At this flux limit we have currently optically identified a total of 84 sources, representing 82\% completeness. At relatively bright fluxes ($>$10$^{-14}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$) QSOs dominate the survey. However below a flux of 5x10$^{-15}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ a population of narrow emission line galaxies dominates. The number counts of these faint galaxies rise steeply at faint X-ray fluxes and they are clearly a major new contributor to the X-ray background. They contribute 9-20\% of the X-ray background at our flux limit. Optical emission line diagnostics indicate that they are a mixture of Sy2 galaxies, possible starburst galaxies and relatively normal galaxies at their redshifts of z$\approx$0.2-0.5.

Thursday program listing