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Sloan Digital Sky Survey (DR5)/XMM-Newton Quasar Survey Catalog

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

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 .

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.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/sdssxmmqso
Data Last Modified 2025-09-10
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 11567210-c25d-4fb0-8cb6-4cd1b6485a79
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/sdssxmmqso.html
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 24525fb5d1b4f8029fa4b0c776c995872cb2ce76440ce8de234578a884b79f35
Source Schema Version 1.1

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