Galactic Center Chandra X-Ray Source Near-IR Counterparts

The authors find that 5.8% =/- 1.5% (2 sigma) of the hard X-ray sources have real infrared counterparts, of which 228 +/- 99 are red and 166 +/- 27 are blue. The red counterparts are probably comprised of Wolf-Rayet and O stars, high-mass X-ray binaries, and symbiotic binaries located near the Galactic center. Foreground X-ray binaries suffering intrinsic X-ray absorption could be included in the sample of blue infrared counterparts to hard X-ray sources.

The authors also find that 39.4% +/- 1.0% of the soft X-ray sources have blue infrared counterparts; most of these are probably coronally active dwarfs in the foreground. There is a noteworthy collection of ~20 red counterparts to hard X-ray sources near the Sagittarius B H II region, which are probably massive binaries that have formed within the last several Myr. For each of the infrared matches to X-ray sources in their catalog, the authors derived the probability that the association is real, based on the source properties and the results of the cross-correlation analysis.

These data are included in this catalog and will serve spectroscopic surveys to identify infrared counterparts to X-ray sources near the Galactic center. This table was created by the HEASARC in October 2009 based on the electronic version of Table 3 from the reference paper which was obtained from the Astrophysical Journal web site. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .