The X-ray Universe
XMM-Newton is the most powerful telescope placed in orbit, and observes the sky with an image quality approaching that of ground-based telescopes. Issues of reliability and completeness of data in the generated X-ray catalogue are being addressed in the EU-funded 'ARCHES: Astronomical resource cross-matching for high energy studies' (ARCHES) project. The addition of quality flags and long-term variability parameters will help users select data subsets that allow reliable source identification and, subsequently, to explore their properties. Taking the XMM-Newton catalogue a step further, the ARCHES project joins the expertise of leading astronomers with the skills of its institutional partners to develop the virtual observatory. Facilitating access to data from ESA's archives and European Space Observatory's (ESO) public surveys, it will offer views of the same astronomical objects at different wavelengths. Algorithms to cross-identify sources detected at different wavelengths have already been developed and implemented as software tools. These are based on the known properties of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) that stars, galaxies and well-detected astronomical objects display. When several candidates match position constraints, comparing the SEDs allows identifying the right counterpart. The software tools developed during the ARCHES project will be made publicly available. Along with them, a new catalogue of X-ray sources identified in data archives covering different wavelengths will be offered to the astronomical community. ARCHES has significantly improved the processing of XMM-Newton data, leading to the most up-to-date catalogue of X-ray sources with the highest quality. This vast inventory of multi-wavelength observations is hoped to be the key to unlocking a storehouse of the most extreme phenomena in the Universe.
Keywords
XMM-Newton, black holes, high energy studies, spectral energy distribution, X-ray sources
