Sample of faint X-ray pulsators

The archival data of the first 15 yr of Chandra observations were retrieved and analysed by means of fast Fourier transforms, employing a peak-detection algorithm able to screen candidate signals in an automatic fashion. We carried out the search for new X-ray pulsators in light curves with more than 50 photons, for a total of about 190000 light curves out of about 430000 extracted.

With these numbers, the ChAndra Timing Survey at Brera And Roma astronomical observatories (CATS @ BAR) - as we called the project - represents the largest ever systematic search for coherent signals in the classic X-ray band. More than 50 per cent of the signals were confirmed by further Chandra (for those sources with two or more pointings), XMM-Newton or ROSAT data. The period distribution of the new X-ray pulsators above ~2000s resembles that of cataclysmic variables, while there is a paucity of sources with shorter period and low fluxes.