Candidate isolated neutron stars in the 4XMM-DR10 catalog of X-ray sources
Date Issued
2022
Author(s)
Abstract
Most isolated neutron stars have been discovered thanks to the detection of
their pulsed non-thermal emission, at wavelengths spanning from radio to
gamma-rays. However, if the beamed non-thermal radiation does not intercept our
line of sight or it is too faint or absent, isolated neutron stars can also be
detected through their thermal emission, which peaks in the soft X-ray band and
is emitted nearly isotropically. In the past thirty years, several
thermally-emitting isolated neutron stars have been discovered thanks to X-ray
all-sky surveys, observations targeted at the center of supernova remnants, or
as serendipitous X-ray sources. Distinctive properties of these relatively rare
X-ray sources are very soft spectra and high ratios of X-ray to optical flux.
The recently released 4XMM-DR10 catalog contains more than half a million X-ray
sources detected with the XMM-Newton telescope in the 0.2-10 keV range in
observations carried out from 2000 to 2019. Based on a study of the spectral
properties of these sources and on cross-correlations with catalogs of possible
counterparts, we have carried out a search of isolated neutron stars, finding
four potential candidates. The spectral and long-term variability analysis of
these candidates, using also Chandra and Swift-XRT data, allowed us to point
out the most interesting sources deserving further multiwavelength
investigations.
Volume
509
Issue
1
Start page
1217
Issn Identifier
0035-8711
Rights
open.access
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