NGC 3293 Chandra X-Ray Point Source Catalog

NGC 3293 is a young stellar cluster at the northwestern periphery of the Carina Nebula Complex that has remained poorly explored until now. The authors wanted to characterize the stellar population of NGC 3293 in order to evaluate key parameters of the cluster population like the age and the mass function, and to test claims of an abnormal initial mass function (IMF) and a deficit of <= 2.5*M<sub>sun</sub> stars. Thus, they performed a deep (71 ksec) X-ray observation of NGC 3293 with Chandra in which they detected 1026 individual X-ray point sources. These X-ray data directly probe the low-mass (M <= 2*M<sub>sun</sub>) stellar population by means of the strong X-ray emission of young low-mass stars. The authors have identified counterparts for 74% of the X-ray sources in their deep near-infrared images. These data clearly show that NGC 3293 hosts a large population of ~ 1*M<sub>sun</sub> stars, refuting claims of a lack of M <= 2.5*M<sub>sun</sub> stars. The analysis of the color-magnitude diagram suggests an age of ~8-10 Myr for the low-mass population of the cluster. There are at least 511 X-ray detected stars with color-magnitude positions that are consistent with young stellar members within 7 arcminutes from the cluster center. The number ratio of X-ray detected stars in the 1-2 solar mass range versus the M >= 5*M<sub>sun</sub> stars (known from optical spectroscopy) is well consistent with the expectation from a normal field initial mass function. Most of the early B-type stars and ~20% of the later B-type stars are detected as X-ray sources. These data shows that NGC 3293 is one of the most populous stellar clusters in the entire Carina Nebula Complex (only excelled by Tr 14, and very similar to Tr 16 and Tr 15). The cluster has probably harbored several O-type stars, the supernova explosions of which may have had an important impact on the early evolution of the Carina Nebula Complex. The authors used the Chandra X-ray Observatory to perform a deep pointing of the cluster NGC 3293 with the Imaging Array of the Chandra Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS-I). The 71-ksec observation was performed as an open time project with ObsID 16648 (PI: T. Preibisch) during Chandra Observing Cycle 15 in October 2015 (start date: 2015-10-07 T10:14:23, end date: 2015-10-08 T06:43:28). The imaging array ACIS-I provides a field of view of 17' x 17' on the sky (which corresponds to a scale of 11.3 x 11.3pc at the cluster distance of 2.3 kpc), and has a pixel size of 0.492". The aimpoint of the observation was RA(J2000) = 10<sup>h</sup> 35<sup>m</sup> 50.07<sup>s</sup>, Dec(J2000) = -58<sup>o</sup> 14' 00", which is close to the optical center of the cluster (see Fig. 1 in the reference paper). The pointing roll angle (i.e., the orientation of the detector with respect to the celestial North direction) was 140.19<sup>o</sup>. In addition to ACIS-I, one CCD detector (CCD 7 = S3) of the spectroscopic array ACIS-S was also operational during this pointing. It covers an 8.3' x 8.3' area on the sky southwest of the cluster center. While the ACIS-I chips are front-illuminated (FI), the S3 chip is back-illuminated (BI), and thus its response extends to energies below that accessible by the FI chips. This causes a substantially higher level of background in the S3 chip. Furthermore, the PSF is seriously degraded at the rather large off-axis angles of the S3 chip. These two effects led to a considerably higher detection limit for point sources in the area covered by the S3 chip compared to the region covered by the ACIS-I array. Nevertheless, the S3 data were included in the data analysis and source detection, and contributed four point sources to the total source list. At the distance of 2.3 kpc, the expected ACIS point source sensitivity limit for a three-count detection on-axis in a 71-ks observation corresponds to a minimum X-ray luminosity of L<sub>x</sub> ~ 10<sup>29.7</sup> erg s<sup>-1</sup> in the 0.5-8.0 keV energy band, assuming an extinction of A<sub>V</sub> ~ 1 mag (N<sub>H</sub> ~ 2 x 10<sup>21</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>) typical for the stars in the central region of NGC 3293, and a thermal plasma with kT = 1 keV (which is a typical value for young stars). Using the empirical relation between X-ray luminosity and stellar mass and the temporal evolution of X-ray luminosity from the sample of young stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster, which was very well studied in the Chandra Orion Ultradeep Project (Preibisch et al. 2005, ApJS, 160, 401; Preibisch & Feigelson 2005, ApJS, 160, 390), the authors expected to detect ~90% of the ~ 1*M<sub>sun</sub> stars in the central region of the young cluster NGC 3293. The X-ray properties of the 97 B-type stars in the ACIS-