The XMM-Newton/Chandra monitoring campaign of the Galactic center region. Description of the program and preliminary results

We present the first results of our X-ray monitoring campaign on a 1.7 square degree region centered on Sgr A* using the satellites XMM-Newton and Chandra. The purpose of this campaign is to monitor the behavior (below 10 keV) of X-ray sources (both persistent and transient) which are too faint to b...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wijnands, R., in't Zand, J., Rupen, M., Maccarone, T., Homan, J., Cornelisse, R., Fender, R., Grindlay, J., van der Klis, M., Kuulkers, E., Markwardt, C., Miller-Jones, James, Wang, Q.
Format: Journal Article
Published: EDP Sciences 2006
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/aa/full/2006/15/aa4129-05/aa4129-05.html
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/17283
Description
Summary:We present the first results of our X-ray monitoring campaign on a 1.7 square degree region centered on Sgr A* using the satellites XMM-Newton and Chandra. The purpose of this campaign is to monitor the behavior (below 10 keV) of X-ray sources (both persistent and transient) which are too faint to be detected by monitoring instruments aboard other satellites currently in orbit (e.g., Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer; INTEGRAL). Our first monitoring observations (using the HRC-I aboard Chandra) were obtained on June 5, 2005. Most of the sources detected could be identified with foreground sources, such as X-ray active stars. In addition we detected two persistent X-ray binaries (1E 1743.1-2843; 1A 1742-294), two faint X-ray transients (GRS 1741.9-2853; XMM J174457-2850.3), as well as a possible new transient source at a luminosity of a few times 10^34 erg s-1. We report on the X-ray results on these systems and on the non-detection of the transients in follow-up radio data using the Very Large Array. We discuss how our monitoring campaign can help to improve our understanding of the different types of X-ray transients (i.e., the very faint ones).