An Infrared Imaging Survey of the Faint Chandra Sources near the Galactic Centre

Abstract

We present near-IR imaging of a sample of the faint, hard X-ray sources discovered in the 2001 Chandra ACIS-I survey towards the Galactic Centre (GC) (Wang et al. 2002). These ~800 discrete sources represent an important and previously undetected population within the Galaxy. From our VLT observations of 77 X-ray sources, we identify candidate K-band counterparts to 75% of the Chandra sources in our sample. The near-IR magnitudes and colours of the majority of candidate counterparts are consistent with highly reddened stars, indicating that most of the Chandra sources are likely to be accreting binaries at or near the GC.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS, version with full-resolution figures available at http://www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk/~rmb/rmb_mn_f.ps

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• The UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey
• A Chandra Catalog of X-ray Sources in the Central 150 pc of the Galaxy
• The complex, variable near infrared extinction towards the Nuclear Bulge
• Wind accretion in the massive X-ray binary 4U 2206+54: abnormally slow wind and a moderately eccentric orbit
• Near-Infrared Counterparts to Chandra X-ray Sources toward the Galactic Center. I. Statistics and a Catalog of Candidates
• GRO J1744-28, search for the counterpart: infrared photometry and spectroscopy
• The Nature of the Faint Chandra X-ray Sources in the Galactic Centre
• The Swift Bulge Survey: optical and near-IR follow-up featuring a likely symbiotic X-ray binary & a focused wind CV
• Complex small-scale structure in the infrared extinction towards the Galactic Centre
• Near-infrared counterparts of Chandra X-ray sources toward the Galactic Center
• 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
• Statistical Analysis of Point-like Sources in Chandra Galactic Center Survey
• Chandra Observations of Galactic Center: High Energy Processes at Arcsecond Resolution