Comparison of 3.6 - 8.0 Micron Spitzer/IRAC Galactic Center Survey Point Sources with Chandra X-Ray Point Sources in the Central 40x40 Parsecs

R. G. Arendt(1,2), D. Y. Gezari(3), S. R. Stolovy(4), K. Sellgren(5), R. Smith(3), S. V. Ramírez(6), F. Yusef-Zadeh(7), C. J. Law(7,8), H. A. Smith(9), A. S. Cotera(10), S. H. Moseley(3)


(1) CRESST/UMBC/GSFC;
(2) Science Systems and Applications, Inc.
(3) NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
(4) Spitzer Science Center, California Institute of Technology
(5) Ohio State University
(6) IPAC, California Institute of Technology
(7) Northwestern University
(8) Sterrenkundig Instituut ``Anton Pannekoek'', Universiteit van Amsterdam
(9) Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
(10) SETI Institute

Paper: ApJ, 2008, in press

EPrint Server: 0806.1880


Abstract:

We have studied the correlation between 2357 Chandra X-ray point sources in a 40 * 40 parsec field and 20,000 infrared sources we observed in the corresponding subset of our 2\arcdeg * 1.4\arcdeg Spitzer/IRAC Galactic Center Survey at 3.6-8.0 micron , using various spatial and X-ray hardness thresholds. The correlation was determined for source separations of less than 0.''5, 1'' or 2''. Only the soft X-ray sources show any correlation with infrared point sources on these scales, and that correlation is very weak. The upper limit on hard X-ray sources that have infrared counterparts is <1.7% (3 sigma ). However, because of the confusion limit of the IR catalog, we only detect IR sources with absolute magnitudes <= 1. As a result, a stronger correlation with fainter sources cannot be ruled out. Only one compact infrared source, IRS 13, coincides with any of the dozen prominent X-ray emission features in the 3 * 3 parsec region centered on Sgr A*, and the diffuse X-ray and infrared emission around Sgr A* seems to be anti-correlated on a few-arcsecond scale. We compare our results with previous identifications of near-infrared companions to Chandra X-ray sources.


Preprints available from the authors at sellgren@astronomy.ohio-state.edu , or the raw TeX (no figures) if you click here.

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