Searching for accreting white dwarfs, black holes, and neutron stars within\textit{ Swift} ultraviolet counterparts to \textit{Chandra} X-ray sources in the Galactic Bulge Survey region
POSTER
Abstract
The \textit{Swift} portion of the Galactic Bulge Survey (Jonker et al. 2011) surveyed random sections from the northern strip of the Galactic plane (1$^{\circ}$ \textless\ $b$ \textless\ 2$^{\circ}$ ) in the direction of the Galactic center. By avoiding the center of the Galaxy extinction is much more limited while still maintaining a relatively high source density. The source list was originally compiled by \textit{Chandra} in the X-ray. We are searching for CVs, and possibly LMXBs, but coronally active stars and other hot stars may be detected. All of the detections in the UV are expected to be foreground objects. Some of the overall goals of the Galactic Bulge Survey are to 1) Constrain the Neutron star equation of state, 2) constrain the black hole mass distribution, and 3) constrain X-ray binary formation scenarios, all of which can be accomplished through source-type population numbers and making detailed follow-up observations of the X-ray binaries in order to better understand their distribution. The goal for this segment of the project is to match the UV observations with X-ray sources from \textit{Chandra} and to then classify these sources. A total of 50 out of about 1200 sources were matched in the UV, which is not unusual considering the \textit{Swift} coverage was less than half of that of \textit{Chandra}. 8 of these sources have noticeable UV excess and 3 of these sources seem to vary.
Authors
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Catherine Fielder
Texas Tech University
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Thomas Maccarone
Texas Tech University
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Robert Hynes
Louisiana State University