NuSTAR Hard X-Ray Survey of the Galactic Center

The severe extinction observed in the Chandra spectra indicates that all the NuSTAR sources are in the central bulge or are of extragalactic origin. Spectral analysis of relatively bright NuSTAR sources suggests that magnetic cataclysmic variables constitute a large fraction (>40% - 60%). Both spectral analysis and logN - logS distributions of the NuSTAR sources indicate that the X-ray spectra of the NuSTAR sources should have kT > 20 keV on average for a single-temperature thermal plasma model or an average photon index of Gamma = 1.5 - 2 for a power-law model.

These findings suggest that the GC X-ray source population may contain a larger fraction of XBs with high plasma temperatures than the field population. The observations of the GC region with NuSTAR began in 2012 July, shortly after its launch. The original survey strategy for the GC region was to match the central 2 degree x 0.7 degree region covered by the Chandra X-ray Observatory (Wang et al. 2002, Nature, 415, 148; Muno et al. 2009, ApJS, 181, 110).

The field of views (FOVs) of neighboring NuSTAR observations in the survey were designed to overlap with each other by ~40%. Multiple observations of the same region with relatively large FOV offsets tend to average out the vignetting effects of each observation, enabling a more uniform coverage of the region. Multiple observations are also suitable for monitoring long term X-ray variability of sources in the region.

Even when observing a single target, the NuSTAR observation is often broken up into two or more segments with relatively large pointing offsets to allow an efficient subtraction of a detector coordinate-dependent background component (e.g., Mori et al. 2013, ApJ, 770, L23). This table was created by the HEASARC in March 2018, based on <a href="cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/ApJ/825/132">CDS Catalog J/ApJ/825/132</a> files table2.dat, table3.dat, table4.dat and table5.dat.

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