XMM-Newton Medium Sensitivity Survey: 318 X-ray Sources and Optical Identifications

The XMM-Newton Medium Sensitivity Survey (XMS) catalog contains 318 X-ray sources from the serendipitous content of 25 XMM-Newton target fields. It provides an unbiased description of the X-ray source population at intermediate fluxes across soft, intermediate, hard, and ultra-hard energy bands, with optical identification reported as 85-95% complete. This table was created by NASA's HEASARC in March 2008 based on data from the CDS catalog.

Use Cases

• Analyze the fraction of optically obscured objects in AGN populations based on selection band and flux data.
• Study the distribution of X-ray-to-optical flux ratios as a function of X-ray selection band.
• Model the contribution of stars versus AGN to the X-ray sky at intermediate flux levels.
• Investigate the constancy of obscured AGN fractions across two decades of flux for different energy bands.

Strengths

• Includes 318 X-ray sources across four overlapping energy band samples.
• Optical identification is reported as 85-95% complete.
• Provides a quantitative, flux-limited description of the X-ray source population.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is based on 25 specific target fields, which may introduce spatial sampling bias.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA HEASARC)

Collection Method

Sources identified from the serendipitous content of 25 XMM-Newton telescope target fields.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 18:16:43.206245; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Sky survey data from XMM-Newton telescope observations.