The XMM-Newton survey of the COSMOS field

XMM-Newton has detected ~1800 X-ray sources down to limiting fluxes of ~5x10^-16^, ~3x10^-15^, and ~7x10^-15^erg/cm^2^/s in the 0.5-2keV, 2-10keV, and 5-10keV bands, respectively (~1x10^-15^, ~6x10^-15^, and ~1x10^-14^erg/cm^2^/s, in the three bands, respectively, over 50% of the area). The work is complemented by an extensive collection of multiwavelength data from 24um to UV, available from the COSMOS survey, for each of the X-ray sources, including spectroscopic redshifts for >~50% of the sample, and high-quality photometric redshifts for the rest.

The XMM and multiwavelength flux limits are well matched: 1760 (98%) of the X-ray sources have optical counterparts, 1711 (~95%) have IRAC counterparts, and 1394 (~78%) have MIPS 24um detections. Spectroscopically identified obscured and unobscured AGNs, as well as normal and star-forming galaxies, present well-defined optical and infrared properties. We devised a robust method to identify a sample of ~150 high-redshift (z>1), obscured AGN candidates for which optical spectroscopy is not available.