The Massive Star-Forming Regions Omnibus X-Ray Catalog, Second Installment

TL;DR

This paper presents the second installment of a comprehensive X-ray catalog of massive star-forming regions, including 18,396 sources across 16 Galactic regions, enhancing understanding of feedback processes in star formation.

Contribution

It provides an expanded, detailed X-ray source catalog for multiple star-forming regions, enabling new insights into feedback mechanisms and unresolved X-ray emission in these environments.

Findings

Unresolved X-ray emission is mainly due to hot plasmas from stellar feedback.

The catalog more than doubles the previous sample, broadening research scope.

Feedback from winds and supernovae significantly influences the X-ray emission in MSFRs.

Abstract

We present the second installment of the Massive Star-forming Regions (MSFRs) Omnibus X-ray Catalog (MOXC2), a compilation of X-ray point sources detected in Chandra/ACIS observations of 16 Galactic MSFRs and surrounding fields. MOXC2 includes 13 ACIS mosaics, three containing a pair of unrelated MSFRs at different distances, with a total catalog of 18,396 point sources. The MSFRs sampled range over distances of 1.3 kpc to 6 kpc and populations varying from single massive protostars to the most massive Young Massive Cluster known in the Galaxy. By carefully detecting and removing X-ray point sources down to the faintest statistically-significant limit, we facilitate the study of the remaining unresolved X-ray emission. Through comparison with mid-infrared images that trace photon-dominated regions and ionization fronts, we see that the unresolved X-ray emission is due primarily to hot plasmas threading these MSFRs, the result of feedback from the winds and supernovae of massive stars. The 16 MSFRs studied in MOXC2 more than double the MOXC1 sample, broadening the parameter space of ACIS MSFR explorations and expanding Chandra's substantial contribution to contemporary star formation science.