The MAVERIC Survey: Chandra/ACIS Catalog of Faint X-ray sources in 38 Galactic globular clusters

Abstract

Globular clusters host a variety of lower-luminosity ($L_X<10^{35}$ erg s${}^{-1}$) X-ray sources, including accreting neutron stars and black holes, millisecond pulsars, cataclysmic variables, and chromospherically active binaries. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive catalog of more than 1100 X-ray sources in 38 Galactic globular clusters observed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory's ACIS detector. The targets are selected to complement the MAVERIC survey's deep radio continuum maps of Galactic globular clusters. We perform photometry and spectral analysis for each source, determine a best-fit model, and assess the possibility of it being a foreground/background source based on its spectral properties and location in the cluster. We also provide basic assessments of variability. We discuss the distribution of X-ray binaries in globular clusters, their X-ray luminosity function, and carefully analyze systems with $L_X>10^{33}$ erg s${}^{-1}$. Among these moderately bright systems, we discover a new source in NGC 6539 that may be a candidate accreting stellar-mass black hole or a transitional millisecond pulsar. We show that quiescent neutron star LMXBs in globular clusters may spend ~2% of their lifetimes as transitional millisecond pulsars in their active ($L_X>10^{33}$ erg s${}^{-1}$) state. Finally, we identify a substantial under-abundance of bright ($L_X>10^{33}$ erg s${}^{-1}$) intermediate polars in globular clusters compared to the Galactic field, in contrast with the literature of the past two decades.

35 pages, 14 figures, ApJ, in press. The complete catalog is available in a machine-readable format via "Other formats" (source)

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Cited by in corpus (30)

• Transitional millisecond pulsars
• Does NGC 6397 contain an intermediate-mass black hole or a more diffuse inner subcluster?
• Discovery and timing of ten new millisecond pulsars in the globular cluster Terzan 5
• A Census of X-ray Millisecond Pulsars in Globular Clusters
• A Deep Chandra X-ray Observatory Study of the Millisecond Pulsar Population in the Globular Cluster Terzan 5
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• Hard X-ray luminosity functions of cataclysmic variables: Joint Swift/BAT and Gaia data
• The MAVERIC Survey: Simultaneous Chandra and VLA observations of the transitional millisecond pulsar candidate NGC 6652B
• Discovery and Timing of Millisecond Pulsars in the Globular Cluster M5 (NGC 5904) with FAST and Arecibo
• A Deep Search for Faint Chandra X-ray Sources, Radio Sources, and Optical Counterparts in NGC 6752
• Radio detections of two unusual cataclysmic variables in the VLA Sky Survey
• Multiwavelength evidence for a new flare-mode transitional millisecond pulsar
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• A candidate magnetic helium core white dwarf in the globular cluster NGC 6397
• Exploration of faint X-ray and radio sources in the massive globular cluster M14: A UV-bright counterpart to Nova Ophiuchus 1938
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