ROSAT Deep X-Ray Radio Blazar Survey Catalog: 298 Identified Sources

The Deep X-Ray Radio Blazar Survey (DXRBS) catalog contains 298 identified astronomical sources, including 234 radio-loud quasars, 36 BL Lacertae objects, and 28 narrow-line radio galaxies. The survey was created by NASA researchers by correlating archived ROSAT PSPC X-ray data with public radio catalogs to find serendipitous flat-spectrum sources. It achieved approximately 90% efficiency in finding radio-loud quasars and BL Lacs, with redshift information available for 96% of the sample.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the distribution of blazars in X-ray and radio luminosity parameter space based on the survey's findings.
• Studying the population of Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars (FSRQs) with high X-ray to radio luminosity ratios mentioned in the description.
• Comparing the completeness of blazar samples across different survey techniques as discussed in the DXRBS papers.
• Investigating the lower luminosity end of the FSRQ luminosity function using the statistically significant low-luminosity sample.

Strengths

• Contains 298 identified sources with 96% redshift completeness.
• Survey was found to be ~90% efficient at finding radio-loud quasars and BL Lacertae objects.
• Reaches faint flux limits of ~50 mJy at 5-GHz radio and a few times 10^-14 erg/cm²/s in X-ray.
• More than doubled the number of FSRQs in complete samples within a specific radio luminosity range.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect observational bias inherent to the ROSAT archive and correlating radio catalogs.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Correlation of archived ROSAT WGACAT X-ray data with several publicly available radio catalogs.

Time Range

Based on archived ROSAT data; specific observation dates not provided.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 19:16:27.107406; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Astronomical survey; spatial coverage is the sky as observed by ROSAT.