The XMM-Newton Bright Serendipitous Source Sample (XMM-Newton BSS)
/ Authors
R. Ceca, T. Maccacaro, A. Caccianiga, P. Severgnini, X. Barcons, D. Barret, F. Carrera, G. Hasinger, R. McMahon, C. Motch
and 8 more authors
W. Pietsch, M. Page, S. Rosen, A. Schwope, M. Watson, N. Webb, D. Worrall, H. Ziaeepour
/ Abstract
The XMM-Newton Survey Science Center is constructing a large (~1000 sources) and complete sample of bright serendipitous XMM-Newton sources at high galactic latitude, so as to allow both the discovery of sources of high individual interest as well as statistical population studies. The sample, known as ``The XMM-Newton Bright Serendipitous Source Sample" (XMM-Newton BSS), has a flux limit of ~10^(-13) cgs in the 0.5--4.5 keV energy band and will be fundamental in complementing other medium and deep survey programs (having fluxes 10 to 100 times fainter) in order to: a) characterize the X-ray sky and its constituents, b) understand the evolution of the population selected and c) define statistical identification procedures to select rare and interesting populations of X-ray sources (e.g. high z clusters of galaxies, BL Lacs, type 2 QSOs, etc..). We discuss here the scientific rationale and the details of the project and we present some preliminary results.
Journal: arXiv: Astrophysics