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A. B. Rogel, P. M. Lugger, H. N. Cohn (Indiana U.), J. E. Grindlay, P. Zhao (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
The ChaMPlane Survey is designed to identify the many serendipitous X-ray sources detected in Galactic Plane fields, with the goal of investigating the spatial distribution of accretion-powered X-ray sources within the Galaxy. Archival Chandra images and deep NOAO 4m Mosaic photometry are combined to generate a list of likely targets, for which spectra are then acquired at WIYN and CTIO. Imaging is complete for 30 fields, and spectroscopic followup has been carried out for targets in 13 fields. We report results of WIYN/Hydra multi-object spectroscopy for Chandra and Ha-excess targets in 12 northern ChaMPlane fields. Our spectrograph setup covers 4000Å--6800Å, with resolution of 2.8Å\ (FWHM). We generally cover ~60 objects per setup, with 1-2 setups per field. Spectroscopic identification of targeted objects is >90% complete to a magnitude of R=21, with reasonable success identifying sources as faint as R=22.5. Newly-classified objects include 6 cataclysmic variables (CVs), 4 Be stars, over 400 M stars (about half of which have clear Ha emission), and 28 new quasars of redshift 0.2--4.25. The apparent CVs have R magnitudes ranging from 17.1 to 21.7, and typically show H\alpha, H\beta, and He I lines. One CV also shows the He II 4686Å\ line, while two CVs show M-star secondary profiles. Clear rotational splitting is seen in several of the CVs as well.
We discuss trends seen in this sample of ChaMPlane objects, and examine the implications of our CV detections for the space density of CVs within the context of a developing model of expected CV detections. The model uses Monte-Carlo techniques to create and sample an exponential-disk CV distribution. Detection is set by limiting magnitude, computed using a model for CV absolute magnitude distribution, a gas/dust model for the disk, and heliocentric distance.
This work is supported by NSF grant AST0098683 and NASA/Chandra grant AR1-2001X.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ChaMPlane/. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: abrogel@astro.indiana.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.