Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

This site is currently in beta, and your feedback is helping shape its ongoing development.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey (DR5)/XMM-Newton Quasar Survey 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 table contains the 5th Data Release Sloan Digital Sky Survey (DR5 SDSS)/XMM-Newton Quasar Survey Catalog. This catalog contains 792 SDSS DR5 quasars with optical spectra that have been observed serendipitously in the X-rays with XMM-Newton. These quasars cover a redshift range of z = 0.11 - 5.41 and a magnitude range of i = 15.3 - 20.7. Substantial numbers of radio-loud (70) and broad absorption line (51) quasars exist within this sample. Significant X-ray detections at >=2 sigma account for 87% of the sample (685 quasars), and 473 quasars are detected at >=6 sigma, sufficient to allow X-ray spectral fits. For detected sources, ~60% have X-ray fluxes between F(2-10 keV) = (1-10) x 10<sup>-14</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>. The authors fit a single power law, a fixed power law with intrinsic absorption left free to vary, and an absorbed power-law model to all quasars with X-ray signal-to-noise ratio >= 6, resulting in a weighted mean photon index Gamma = 1.91 +/- 0.08, with an intrinsic dispersion sigma(Gamma) = 0.38. For the 55 sources (11.6%) that prefer intrinsic absorption, the authors find a weighted mean N<sub>H</sub> = 1.5 +/- 0.3 x 10<sup>21</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>. They find that Gamma correlates significantly with optical color, Delta(g-i), the optical-to-X-ray spectral index (alpha<sub>ox</sub>), and the X-ray luminosity. While the first two correlations can be explained as artifacts of undetected intrinsic absorption, the correlation between Gamma and X-ray luminosity appears to be a real physical correlation, indicating a pivot in the X-ray slope. This table was created by the HEASARC in July 2009 based on electronic versions of Tables 1 and 2 from the paper which were obtained from the Astrophysical Journal web site. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Find Related Datasets

Click any tag below to search for similar datasets

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov