Related papers: A deep ROSAT Survey - XIV. X-ray emission from fai…

We summarise our recent work on the faint galaxy contribution to the cosmic X-ray background (XRB). At bright X-ray fluxes (in the ROSAT pass band), broad line QSOs dominate the X-ray source population, but at fainter fluxes there is…

Optical spectroscopy has enabled us to identify the optical counterparts to over 200 faint X-ray sources to a flux limit of S_(0.5-2keV)=4x10^-15 erg s^-1 cm^-2 on 5 deep ROSAT fields. Here we present a spectral analysis of all the X-ray…

We present deep K-band imaging at the positions of four very faint X-ray sources found in the UK ROSAT Deep Survey to have no optical counterpart brighter than R~23. Likely identifications are found within the ROSAT error circle in all four…

At the faint end of the deepest X-ray surveys, a population of X-ray luminous galaxies is seen. In this paper, we present the results of a cross-correlation between the residual, unresolved X-ray photons in a very deep X-ray survey and the…

We have identified a population of blank field sources (or `blanks') among the ROSAT bright unidentified X-ray sources with faint optical counterparts. The extreme X-ray over optical flux ratio of blanks is not compatible with the main…

We have carried out a fluctuation analysis in four bands (R4, R5, R6 and R7 corresponding to 0.44-1.01 keV, 0.56-1.21 keV, 0.73-1.56 keV and to 1.05-2.04 keV respectively) of two very deep ROSAT PSPC observations in directions where the…

We present the results of the deepest optically identified X-ray survey yet made. The X-ray survey was made with the ROSAT PSPC and reaches a flux limit of 1.6x10^-15 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (0.5--2.0 keV). Above a flux limit of 2x10^-15 erg cm^-2…

We have surveyed 188 ROSAT PSPC fields for X-ray sources with hard spectra (alpha<0.5); such sources must be major contributors to the X-ray background at faint fluxes. In this paper we present optical identifications for 62 of these…

Gravitational lensing by clusters of galaxies affects the cosmic X-ray background (XRB) by altering the observed density and flux distribution of background X-ray sources. At faint detection flux thresholds, the resolved X-ray sources…

A significant cross-correlation between the unresolved X-ray background (XRB) at soft energies (0.5 to 2 keV) and foreground bright galaxies has now been reported in several studies. This cross-correlation has been interpreted in terms of a…

We provide important new constraints on the nature and redshift distribution of optically faint (R>25) X-ray sources in the Chandra Deep Field South Survey. We show that we can derive accurate photometric redshifts for the spectroscopically…

We use the extensive public archive of ROSAT High Resolution Imager (HRI) observations to carry out a statistical investigation of the X-ray properties of nearby galaxies. Specifically we focus on the sample of 486 bright (B_T < 12.5)…

The X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of galaxies is dominated by AGN (classified by their optical spectra) above Lx=10**42 erg/s, below this value by normal galaxies. The X-ray flux of AGN at low X-ray luminosity therefore contains…

The optical identification of large number of X-ray sources such as those from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey is challenging with conventional spectroscopic follow-up observations. We investigate two ROSAT All-Sky Survey fields of size 10 * 10…

We present a formalism describing the physical content of cross-correlation functions between a diffuse background and a population of discrete sources. The formalism is used to interpret cross-correlation signals between the unresolved…

Hard X-ray selection is the most efficient way to discriminate between accretion-powered sources, such as AGN, from sources dominated by starlight. Hard X-rays are also less affected than other bands by obscuration. We have then carried out…

Summary of abstract: The existence of a new population of yet unrecognized x-ray sources has been often suggested to resolve some pecularities in the properties of the x-ray background (XRB), and has recently been indicated by an analysis…

The X-ray background (XRB) is produced by a large number of faint sources distributed over a wide range of redshifts. The XRB carries information on the spatial distribution and evolution of these sources. The goals of the paper are: 1. to…

Hot gas dominates the emission in X-ray luminous early-type galaxies, but in relatively X-ray faint systems, integrated X-ray emission from discrete stellar-like sources is thought to be considerable, although the amount of the contribution…

In this paper we investigate the properties of low X-ray-to-optical flux ratio sources detected in a wide area (2.5deg^2) shallow (f(0.5-8keV)~10e-14cgs) XMM-Newton survey. We find a total of 26 sources (5% of the total X-ray selected…