LMXBs detected in nearby galaxies

Our aim is to produce accurate luminosity distributions of X-ray binaries in different environments, suitable for quantitative comparison with each other and with the output of population synthesis calculations.

Our sample includes seven nearby galaxies (M 31, Maffei 1, Centaurus A, M 81, NGC 3379, NGC 4697, and NGC 4278) and the Milky Way, which together provide relatively uniform coverage down to the luminosity limit of 10^35^erg/s. In total we have detected 185 LMXBs associated with GCs, 35 X-ray sources in the nucleus of M 31, and 998 field sources of which ~365 are expected to be background AGN. We combine these data, taking special care to accurately account for X-ray and optical incompleteness corrections and the removal of the contamination from the cosmic X-ray background sources, to produce luminosity distributions of X-ray binaries in different environments to far greater accuracy than has been obtained previously.