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BeppoSAX High-Energy Large Area Survey (HELLAS) X-Ray Source Catalog

Metadata Updated: February 6, 2026

The BeppoSAX High Energy Large Area Survey (HELLAS) has surveyed about 85 deg<sup>2</sup> of sky in the 4.5 - 10 keV band down to a flux of 4 - 5 x 10<sup>-14</sup> erg/cm<sup>2</sup>/s using 142 high Galactic latitude (|b| > 20<sup>o</sup>) observations made by the BeppoSAX Medium Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (MECS). The source surface density of 16.9 +/- 6.4 deg<sup>2</sup> at the survey limit corresponds to a resolved fraction of the 5 - 10 keV X-ray background (XRB) of the order of 20-30 per cent. Hardness ratio analysis indicates that the spectra of a substantial fraction of the HELLAS sources (at least one-third) are harder than a alpha<sub>E</sub> = 0.6 power law. This hardness may be caused by large absorbing columns. The hardness ratio analysis also indicates that many HELLAS sources may have a spectrum more complex than a single absorbed power law. A soft component, superimposed on a strongly cut-off power law, is likely to be present in several sources. There is no overlap among the 142 fields used and, wherever possible, multiple observations of the same field have been merged in one single pointing to increase the sensitivity. Fields were selected among public data (such as that of March 1999) and the authors' proprietary data. Fields centered on bright extended sources and bright Galactic sources were excluded from the survey, as were fields close to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and M 33. Most of the fields have exposures between 30 and 100 ks, and 20 fields have an exposure higher than 80 ks (see Fig. 1 of reference paper). Sources were detected in images accumulated between 4.5 and 10 keV. Source count rates in four bands (1.3 - 10 keV, total or T; 1.3 - 2.5 keV, low band or L; 2.5 - 4.5 keV, middle band or M; 4.5 - 10 keV, high band or H) were extracted and corrected for the energy-dependent vignetting and for the MECS PSF. The count rates were converted to fluxes using a conversion factor of 7.8 x 10<sup>-11</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup> (5 - 10 keV flux) per one '3 ECS count' (4.5 - 10 keV) appropriate for a power-law spectrum with alpha<sub>E</sub> = 0:6. The factor is not strongly sensitive to the spectral shape, owing to the narrow band: thus, for alpha<sub>E</sub> = 0.4 and 0.8 it is 8.1 and 7.6 x 10<sup>-11</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>, respectively. A conversion factor of 9:9 x 10<sup>-11</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup> per one '3 MECS count' has been used for sources under the 550 micron (µm) beryllium strongback supporting the MECS window to account for the reduced detector sensitivity. This table was created by the HEASARC in July 2014 based on <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/MNRAS/327/771">CDS Catalog J/MNRAS/327/771</a> file table2.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date February 6, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date February 6, 2026
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/saxhellas
Data Last Modified 2026-02-03
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 3076fc0a-e903-444a-8220-bce9327d9e52
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/saxhellas.html
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash b813f26d69496ef20c5e3249c76bc04aff0a832932f38774bc78898149017599
Source Schema Version 1.1

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