Second ROSAT all-sky survey (2RXS) source catalogue

By T. Boller, M. Freyberg, J. Trümper, F. Haberl, Wolfgang Voges, K. Nandra. 2016

323 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Aims. We present the second ROSAT all-sky survey source catalogue, hereafter referred to as the 2RXS catalogue. This is the second publicly released ROSAT catalogue of point-like sources obtained from the ROSAT all-sky survey (RASS) observations performed with the position-sensitive proportional counter (PSPC) between June 1990 and August 1991, and is an extended and revised version of the bright and faint source catalogues. Methods. We used the latest version of the RASS processing to produce overlapping X-ray images of 6.4◦×6.4◦ sky regions. To create a source catalogue, a likelihood-based detection algorithm was applied to these, which accounts for the variable point-spread function (PSF) across the PSPC field of view. Improvements in the background determination compared to 1RXS were also implemented. Xray control images showing the source and background extraction regions were generated, which were visually inspected. Simulations were performed to assess the spurious source content of the 2RXS catalogue. X-ray spectra and light curves were extracted for the 2RXS sources, with spectral and variability parameters derived from these products. Results. We obtained about 135,000 X-ray detections in the 0.1 − 2.4 keV energy band down to a likelihood threshold of 6.5, as adopted in the 1RXS faint source catalogue. Our simulations show that the expected spurious content of the catalogue is a strong function of detection likelihood, and the full catalogue is expected to contain about 30 % spurious detections. A more conservative likelihood threshold of 9, on the other hand, yields about 71,000 detections with a 5 % spurious fraction. We recommend thresholds appropriate to the scientific application. X-ray images and overlaid X-ray contour lines provide an additional user product to evaluate the detections visually, and we performed our own visual inspections to flag uncertain detections. Intra-day variability in the X-ray light curves was quantified based on the normalised excess variance and a maximum amplitude variability analysis. X-ray spectral fits were performed using three basic models, a power law, a thermal plasma emission model, and black-body emission. Thirty-two large extended regions with diffuse emission and embedded point sources were identified and excluded from the present analysis. Conclusions. The 2RXS catalogue provides the deepest and cleanest X-ray all-sky survey catalogue in advance of eROSITA.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5da3a42994244094478c5129be577968bf440a98

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Citations in the corpus

The Fifteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: First Release of MaNGA-derived Quantities, Data Visualization Tools, and Stellar Library (2018, methodology): “The SPIDERS DR14 catalog is based on a clean sample of 9399 sources from the Second ROSAT All-Sky Survey catalog (2RXS; Boller et al. 2016) and 1413 sources from the first XMM-Newton Slew survey catalog (XMMSL1; Saxton et al. 2008) with optical spectra available.”
The 105-Month Swift-BAT All-sky Hard X-Ray Survey (2018, background): “Figure 5 shows the counterpart types of the Swift -BAT 105 month sources in common with the INTEGRAL general reference catalog (left) and the ROSAT all-sky survey (2RXS) source catalog (right, Boller et al. 2016).”
The SRG/eROSITA all-sky survey (2024, unknown): “…its associated cat-alogues of X-ray sources, The Bright Source Catalogue (BSC; Voges et al. 1999), Faint Source Catalogue (FSC; Voges et al. 2000), and the more comprehensive second catalogue release 2RXS (Boller et al. 2016), marked a new milestone in the quantity and quality of X-ray detections.”
The Fourth Catalog of Active Galactic Nuclei Detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (2019, background): “We also explored the second RASS catalog (Boller et al. 2016), but this attempt did not lead to further associations.”
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Sixteenth Data Release (2020, methodology): “The source flux and source flux error in the 0.5–2.0 keV band in erg s−1 cm−2, as described in Boller et al. (2016).”
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Fourteenth data release (2017, background): “Initially, SPIDERS targets X-ray sources detected mainly in the ROSAT All Sky Survey (Voges et al. 1999, 2000) which has recently been reprocessed (Boller et al. 2016).”
The WISE AGN Catalog (2017, methodology): “The second release of these observations, presented as the Second ROSAT All-Sky Survey (2RXS; Boller et al. 2016), includes 135,118 Xray sources down to a likelihood threshold of 6.5 (i.e., EXI ML ≥ 6.5), where the catalog is expected to contain about 30% spurious detections.”
Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe (2017, unknown): “Initially, SPIDERS targets X-ray sources detected mainly in the ROSAT All Sky Survey (RASS; Voges et al. 1999), which has recently been reprocessed (Boller et al. 2016).”
The Large Sky Area Multi-object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) Quasar Survey: The Fourth and Fifth Data Releases (2018, background): “92 Name of the object in 2nd ROSAT all-sky survey point source catalog (2RXS, Boller et al. 2016).”