Exploring a New Population of Compact Objects: X-ray and IR Observations of the Galactic Centre
Abstract
I describe the IR and X-ray observational campaign we have undertaken for the purpose of determining the nature of the faint discrete X-ray source population discovered by Chandra in the Galactic Center (GC). Data obtained for this project includes a deep Chandra survey of the Galactic Bulge; deep, high resolution IR imaging from VLT/ISAAC, CTIO/ISPI, and the UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey (GPS); and IR spectroscopy from VLT/ISAAC and IRTF/SpeX. By cross-correlating the GC X-ray imaging from Chandra with our IR surveys, we identify candidate counterparts to the X-ray sources via astrometry. Using a detailed IR extinction map, we are deriving magnitudes and colors for all the candidates. Having thus established a target list, we will use the multi-object IR spectrograph FLAMINGOS-2 on Gemini-South to carry out a spectroscopic survey of the candidate counterparts, to search for emission line signatures which are a hallmark of accreting binaries. By determining the nature of these X-ray sources, this FLAMINGOS-2 Galactic Center Survey will have a dramatic impact on our knowledge of the Galactic accreting binary population.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0808.0519,
title = {Exploring a New Population of Compact Objects: X-ray and IR Observations of the Galactic Centre},
author = {Reba M. Bandyopadhyay and Andrew J. Gosling and Stephen E. Eikenberry and Michael P. Muno and Katherine M. Blundell and Philipp Podsiadlowski and Valerie J. Mikles and Curtis DeWitt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0808.0519},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of The Second Kolkata Conference on Observational Evidence for Black Holes in the Universe'', ed. S. Charkrabarti, Kolkata, India; AIP Conf. Series