Chandra Multiwavelength Plane Survey (ChaMPlane): Photometry Results from the First Two Years

Zhao, P.; Grindlay, J. E.; Edmonds, P.; Garcia, M. R.; McClintock, J. E.; Cohn, H.; Lugger, P.; Slavin, S.; Hoard, D. W.; Wachter, S.
Bibliographical reference

American Astronomical Society, 199th AAS Meeting, #130.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 33, p.1496

Advertised on:
12
2001
Number of authors
10
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
We present the photometric results of the Chandra Multiwavelength Plane Survey (ChaMPlane), which is a project to identify a large sample of serendipitous X-ray sources in the galactic plane, in order to determine the populations of accretion-powered binaries in the Galaxy. Deep Chandra field observations have sufficient sensitivity to reach objects with Lx = 1031 erg/s out to about 7 kpc, i.e. a substantial fraction of the galactic disk. The ChaMPlane project has been chosen as one of the NOAO Long Term Survey Program. We have successfully conducted the ChaMPlane survey for the first two years and obtained deep images in the V, R, I and Hα bands for more than 20 Chandra fields from the CTIO and KPNO 4-m telescopes, which covers more than eight square degrees in the galactic plane. Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) and quiescent Low Mass X-ray Binaries (qLMXBs) are identified by their ubiquitous Hα excess as ``blue'' objects in the R vs. (Hα - R) diagram. We describe our data analysis methods and present initial photometry results for this first significant sample of ChaMPlane optical data. Initial X-ray results for a subset of these fields are presented by Grindlay et al. This work is supported by NASA/SAO grant AR1-2001X and NSF grant AST-0098683.