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R. Shirey (UCSB), W. Pietsch, A. Read, M. Freyberg (MPE), A. Tiengo, M. Ehle (VILSPA), M. Cappi, N. La Palombara, S. Molendi (CNR), W. Priedhorsky, K. Borozdin (LANL), K. Mason, R. Soria, G. Branduardi-Raymont, A. Breeveld (MSSL), T. Sasseen (UCSB), M. Watson, S. Sembay, M. Ward, T. Roberts (U. of Leicester), P. Ferrando (CEA), F. Paerels, S. Kahn, M. Sako (Columbia U.), A. Ptak (Carnegie Mellon U.), T. Ponman (U. of Birmingham)
We present results from XMM-Newton Performance Verification observations of the nearby spiral galaxy M31 and the nearby edge-on starburst galaxy NGC~253, focusing on their X-ray point sources. We report the discovery of a new transient source in each galaxy: ~70'' to the SW of the nucleus in NGC~253 and ~165'' to the NW of the nucleus in M31. Another transient source within 26'' of the nucleus of M31 was still in outburst during the XMM observations, 8 months after Chandra first detected the source. We also find that the flux of a bright ROSAT source in M31 has decreased significantly, such that it is not detected in the XMM EPIC images. We discuss the spectral and temporal characteristics of these transients as well as other point sources in these galaxies in order to distinguish between classes of objects such as low- and high-mass X-ray binaries, super-soft sources, black-hole candidates, supernova remnants, etc.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: shirey@orion.physics.ucsb.edu