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NGC 4649 Chandra X-Ray Point Source Catalog 2

Published by High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center | National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Metadata Last Checked: February 07, 2026 | Last Modified: 2026-02-03
This table contains the main X-ray source catalog for the Chandra monitoring observations of the 16.5-Mpc distant elliptical galaxy, NGC 4649. The galaxy has been observed with Chandra ACIS-S3 in six separate pointings, reaching a total exposure of 299 ks. There are 501 X-ray sources detected in the 0.3-8.0 keV band in the merged observation or in one of the six individual observations; 399 sources are located within the D<sub>25</sub> ellipse. The observed 0.3-8.0 keV luminosities of these 501 sources range from 9.3 x 10<sup>36</sup> erg s<sup>-1</sup> to 5.4 x 10<sup>39</sup> erg s<sup>-1</sup>. The 90% detection completeness limit within the D<sub>25</sub> ellipse is 5.5 x 10<sup>37</sup> erg s<sup>-1</sup>. Based on the surface density of background active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and the detection completeness, we expect ~ 45 background AGNs among the catalog sources (~ 15 within the D<sub>25</sub> ellipse). There are nine sources with luminosities greater than 10<sup>39</sup> erg s<sup>-1</sup>, which are candidates for ultraluminous X-ray sources. The nuclear source of NGC 4649 is a low-luminosity AGN, with an intrinsic 2.0-8.0 keV X-ray luminosity of 1.5 x 10<sup>38</sup> erg s<sup>-1</sup>. The X-ray colors suggest that the majority of the catalog sources are low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). The authors find that 164 of the 501 X-ray sources show long-term variability, indicating that they are accreting compact objects, and discover four transient candidates and another four potential transients. They also identify 173 X-ray sources (141 within the D<sub>25</sub> ellipse) that are associated with globular clusters (GCs) based on Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based data; these LMXBs tend to be hosted by red GCs. Although NGC 4649 has a much larger population of X-ray sources than the structurally similar early-type galaxies, NGC 3379 and NGC 4278, the X-ray source properties are comparable in all three systems. This HEASARC table contains the main Chandra source catalog of the basic properties of the 501 X-ray detected sources (Table 3 in the reference paper which includes both sources detected in the merged X-ray image as well as a number only detected in the individual observations), and also the information on source counts, hardness ratios and soft and hard X-ray colors in the merged observation for the same 501 X-ray detected sources (Table 4 in the reference paper). It does not contain the information on source counts, hardness ratios and soft and hard X-ray colors for these same sources in the six individual observations that were contained in Tables 5 - 10 of the reference paper. This table was created by the HEASARC in March 2013 based on the electronic version of Tables 3 and 4 from the reference paper which were obtained from the ApJS website.. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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