X-Ray Binaries in M51 I: Catalog and Statistics

Abstract

Abstract We used archival data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (Chandra) and the Hubble Space Telescope, to identify 334 candidate X-ray binary systems and their potential optical counterparts in the interacting galaxy pair NGC 5194/5195 (M51). We present the catalog and data analysis of X-ray and optical properties for those sources, from the deep 892 ks Chandra observations, along with the magnitudes of candidate optical sources as measured in the 8.16 ks Hubble Space Telescope observations. The X-ray luminosity function of the X-ray sources above a few times 1036 erg s−1 follows a power law N ( > L X , b ) ∝ L X , b 1 − α with α = 1.65 ± 0.03. Approximately 80% of sources are variable over a 30 day window. Nearly half of the X-ray sources (173/334) have an optical counterpart within 0.″5.