MGGAMMACAT - Gamma-Ray Source Summary Catalog (Macomb & Gehrels 1999 & 2001)

Overview

This database table is a revised and updated version of the published General Gamma-Ray Source Catalog (Macomb & Gehrels 1999, ApJS, 120, 335). It contains all 309 gamma-ray point sources listed in Table 1 of the published version of this catalog; 4 gamma-ray point sources (2CG 054+01, A0620-00, GX 340+0, and H1822-000) added by the HEASARC that were listed in Table 2 of the published catalog but were (presumably accidentally) omitted from Table 1 of the published catalog; and 107 sources (106 sources from the 3rd Egret (3EG) catalog of Hartman et al. (1999, ApJS, 123, 79) and GEV J1732-3130) that were compiled by Macomb and Gehrels subsequent to their original publication (Macomb and Gehrels 2001, unpublished). Thus, the present database table is essentially a summary master list of all detected gamma-ray point sources as of circa 2000.

There is another HEASARC database table called the Gamma-Ray Source Detailed Catalog (Macomb & Gehrels 1999 & 2001) or MGGAMMADET that contains detailed information on the gamma-ray properties of these sources such as fluxes and spectral indices and that is based on Tables 2A-2G of the Macomb & Gehrels paper.

Catalog Bibcode

1999ApJS..120..335M

References

`A General Gamma-Ray Source Catalog' (D.J. Macomb & N. Gehrels 1999, ApJS, 120, 335) and updates to this catalog (D.J. Macomb & N. Gehrels 2001, private communication to the HEASARC).

Provenance

This database table was created by the HEASARC in March 2001 based on tables supplied to the HEASARC by the catalog authors which contained an updated version of Table 1 from the published paper.

Parameters

Name
The most common name of the gamma-ray source in the gamma-ray literature. Two entries in the published catalog were given the identical name of '2CG 359-00': the HEASARC has renamed the source at galactic longitude (lii) and latitude (bii) = (358.77,-1.30) to '2CG 359-00A' and the source at (lii,bii) = (359.53,-0.76) to '2CG 359-00B'.

Alt_Name_1
An alternative name for the gamma-ray source. This is provided to give a reference to other catalogs or other commonly used names.

Alt_Name_2
A second alternative name for the gamma-ray source. This is provided to give a reference to other catalogs or other commonly used names.

Alt_Name_3
A third alternative name for the gamma-ray source. This is provided to give a reference to other catalogs or other commonly used names.

Alt_Name_4
A fourth alternative name for the gamma-ray source. This is provided to give a reference to other catalogs or other commonly used names.

Alt_Name_5
A fifth alternative name for the gamma-ray source. This is provided to give a reference to other catalogs or other commonly used names.

Alt_Name_6
A sixth alternative name for the gamma-ray source. This is provided to give a reference to other catalogs or other commonly used names.

RA
The Right Ascension of the source in the selected equinox. This was given in J2000 coordinates in decimal degrees to a precision of 0.01 degrees in the original table.

Dec
The Declination of the source in the selected equinox. This was given in J2000 coordinates in decimal degrees to a precision of 0.01 degrees in the original table.

LII
The Galactic Longitude of the source.

BII
The Galactic Latitude of the source.

Source_Type
This is a source or object type usually based on the one stated in the SIMBAD database when applicable.

Distance
The distance to the object in kiloparsecs (kpc), given mainly for Galactic sources. The pulsar distances are those given by Taylor et al. (1993, ApJS, 88, 529). For other Galactic sources (usually X-ray binaries), the references used for the source distance are given in the general information field (the reference_info parameter). For a few sources, there are some qualifications to the quoted distance value:

  (i) The quoted value of 2 kpc for GRO J1719-24 is a lower limit; there is
  an upper limit of 3 kpc given in the paper.
  (ii) The quoted value of 10 kpc for GS 1826-24 is a lower limit.
  (iii) The quoted value of 1.8 kpc for GX 301-2 has an uncertainty of
  +/- 0.4 kpc given in the paper.
  (iv) The quoted value of 5.5 kpc for H1538-522 has an uncertainty of
  +/- 1.5 kpc given in the paper.
  (v) The quoted value of 2.4 kpc for H1907+097 is a lower limit; there is
  an upper limit of 5.9 kpc given in the paper.
  (vi) The quoted value of 4 kpc for Nova Muscae 1991 is a lower limit.

Redshift
The redshift of the (extragalactic) source, taken from either the NED or SIMBAD database.

Energy_Range
The energy range(s) over which the object has been detected, in MeV. The listed ranges may be spanned by several observations, or the observations may have gaps in their coverage. For those sources detected at hard X-ray energies, 50 keV has been used as the lower limit for the energy range, since it is the lower limit of this catalog, and most of these sources are detected well down into the soft X-ray range.

Reference_Info
This field contains a a brief summary of some of the most relevant references to this source (truncated to the first 80 characters in the x-ray account CLI-Browse version of this database). In some cases, such as for many of the unidentified sources, there is little but the relevant qualifying observation to note. Other objects, such as the pulsars, have a rich assortment of references, and only a few of the observational or theoretical results are referenced here. The references to observations in this database are representative positive detections (upper limits for many of these sources can be found in the MGGAMMADET database, q.v.). Examples of other papers listed might be studies of gamma-ray variability, theoretical papers exploring a particular result, or references to more controversial results.

Cat_Flag
This flag indicates the original source for a given entry. It is set to 1 for the 309 sources that were listed in Table 1 of the original 1999 published version of this catalog (Macomb and Gehrels 1999, ApJS, 120, 335), to 2 for 4 sources (2CG 054+01, A0620-00, GX 340+0, and H1822-000) that were listed in Table 2 of the original 1999 published version of this catalog, but were (presumably accidentally) omitted from Table 1 of the published catalog, and to 3 for 107 sources (106 sources from the 3EG Catalog and GEV J1732-3130) that were compiled by Macomb and Gehrels subsequent to the original publication (Macomb and Gehrels 2001, unpublished).

Class
The Browse Object Classification created by the HEASARC based on the source_type parameter, except that more specific classes have been given for many of the X-ray binary sources in this catalog using the classes for these sources given in the HEASARC XRBCAT and HMXBCAT databases.

Contact Person

Questions regarding the MGGAMMACAT database table can be addressed to the HEASARC Help Desk.

Page Author: Browse Software Development Team
Last Modified: Monday, 16-Sep-2024 17:31:05 EDT