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Magellanic Clouds High-Mass X-Ray Binaries Catalog

Published by High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center | National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Metadata Last Checked: February 21, 2026 | Last Modified: 2026-02-17
This database table contains a catalog of high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds (SMC and LMC). The catalog lists source name(s), coordinates, apparent magnitudes, orbital parameters, and X-ray luminosities for 128 HMXBs, together with the stellar parameters of the components, other characteristic properties and a comprehensive selection of the relevant literature. The aim of this catalog is to provide easy access to the basic information on the X-ray sources and their counterparts in other wavelength ranges (UV, optical, IR, radio). Most of the sources have been identified as Be/X-ray binaries. Some sources, however, are only tentatively identified as HMXBs on the basis of a transient character and/or a hard X-ray spectrum. Further identification in other wavelength bands is needed to finally determine the nature of these sources. In cases where there is some doubt about the high-mass nature of the X-ray binary this is mentioned. Literature published before 1 May 2005 has, as far as possible, been taken into account. Information on the numbers used to code references is available at <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/442/1135/refs.dat">CDS</a>. Individual notes on each HMXB are also available for <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/442/1135/notes1.dat">SMC systems</a> and for <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/442/1135/notes2.dat">LMC systems</a> at the same site. This Browse table contains the combination of 92 HMXBs in the SMC and 36 HMXBs in the LMC which were listed in Tables 1 and 2, respectively, of the published version of this catalog. The HEASARC has added a parameter called cloud_id which can be used to identify which Magellanic Cloud any specified HMXB belongs to (the SMC or the LMC). This database was created by the HEASARC in December 2005 based on <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/442/1135">CDS Catalog J/A+A/442/1135</a>, table1.dat and table2.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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