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Chandra Deep Field South 2-Megasecond Catalog

Published by High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center | National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Metadata Last Checked: February 14, 2026 | Last Modified: 2026-02-10
This table contains point-source catalogs for the ~2 Ms exposure of the Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S) this is one of the two most sensitive X-ray surveys ever performed. The survey covers an area of ~436 arcmin<sup>2</sup> and reaches on-axis sensitivity limits of ~1.9 x 10<sup>-17</sup> and ~1.3 x 10<sup>-16</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup> for the 0.5-2.0 and 2-8 keV bands, respectively. Four hundred and sixty-two X-ray point sources (source_sample = 'Main CDF-S' in this table) are detected in at least one of three X-ray bands that were searched; 135 of these sources are new compared to the previous ~1 Ms CDF-S detections. Source positions are determined using centroid and matched-filter techniques; the median positional uncertainty is ~0.36". The X-ray-to-optical flux ratios of the newly detected sources indicate a variety of source types; ~55% of them appear to be active galactic nuclei, while ~45% appear to be starburst and normal galaxies. This table contains, in addition to the main Chandra catalog, the supplementary catalog of 86 X-ray sources (source_sample = 'CDF-S + E-CDF-S' in this table) in the ~2 Ms CDF-S footprint that was created by merging the ~250 ks Extended Chandra Deep Field-South with the CDF-S; this approach provides additional sensitivity in the outer portions of the CDF-S. This table also contains a second supplementary catalog (source_sample = 'Optically Bright' in this table) of 30 X-ray sources which was constructed by matching lower significance X-ray sources to bright optical counterparts (R < 23.8); the majority of these sources appear to be starburst and normal galaxies. The total number of sources in this table, which contains the main and 2 supplementary catalogs, is thus 578. Optical R-band counterparts and basic optical and infrared photometry are provided for the X-ray sources in the main and supplementary catalogs. The authors also include existing spectroscopic redshifts for 224 of the X-ray sources. The average backgrounds in the 0.5-2.0 and 2-8 keV bands are 0.066 and 0.167 counts Ms<sup>-1</sup> pixel<sup>-1</sup>, respectively, and the background counts follow Poisson distributions. The effective exposure times and sensitivity limits of the CDF-S are now comparable to those of the ~2 Ms Chandra Deep Field-North (CDF-N). In their paper, the authors also present cumulative number counts for the main catalog and compare the results to those for the CDF-N. The soft-band number counts for these two fields agree well with each other at fluxes higher than ~2 x 10<sup>-16</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, while the CDF-S number counts are up to ~25% smaller than those for the CDF-N at fluxes below ~2 x 10<sup>-16</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup> in the soft band and ~2 x 10<sup>-15</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup> in the hard band, suggesting small field-to-field variations. This table was created by the HEASARC in December 2008 based on the electronic version of Tables 2, 5 and 6 from the reference paper which were obtained from the ApJ web site. It was last modified by the HEASARC in July 2011. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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