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MCXC - MCXC Meta-Catalog of X-Ray Detected Clusters of Galaxies

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Overview

The MCXC is the Meta-Catalog of the compiled properties of X-ray detected Clusters of galaxies. This very large catalog is based on publicly available ROSAT All Sky Survey (RASS)-based (NORAS, REFLEX, BCS, SGP, NEP, MACS, and CIZA) and ROSAT serendipitous (160SD, 400SD, SHARC, WARPS, and EMSS) cluster catalogs. Data have been systematically homogenised to an overdensity of 500, and duplicate entries from overlaps between the survey areas of the individual input catalogs have been carefully handled. The MCXC comprises 1743 clusters with virtually no duplicate entries. For each cluster, the MCXC provides three identifiers, a redshift, coordinates, membership in the original catalog, and standardised 0.1 - 2.4 keV band luminosity Lx500, total mass M500, and radius R500, where the 500 suffix means that the quantity has been calculated up to a standard characteristic radius R500, the radius within which the mean overdensity of the cluster is 500 times the critical density at the cluster redshift . The meta-catalog additionally furnishes information on overlaps between the input catalogs and the luminosity ratios when measurements from different surveys are available, and gives notes on individual objects. The MCXC is made available so as to provide maximum usefulness for X-ray, Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) and other multiwavelength studies.

The catalogs and sub-catalogs included in this meta-catalog are listed in Table 1 of the reference paper, and come from the following references:

Catalog  Sub-      Reference        Title
        Catalog    or CDS Cat.      (Author)

RASS               IX/10            ROSAT All-Sky Bright Source Catalog (1RXS)
                                    (Voges+, 1999)

BCS

       BCS         J/MNRAS/301/881  ROSAT brightest cluster sample - I.
                                    (Ebeling+, 1998)
       eBCS        J/MNRAS/318/333  Extended ROSAT Bright Cluster Sample
                                    (Ebeling+ 2000)

CIZA                                X-ray clusters behind the Milky Way

       CIZAI       ApJ, 580, 774
                                    (Ebeling+, 2002)
       CIZAII      J/APJ/662/224
                                    (Kocevski+, 2007)

EMSS               ApJS, 72, 567    Einstein Extended Medium Sensitivity Survey
                                    (Gioia+, 1990)
       EMSS_1994   ApJS, 94, 583
                                    (Gioia & Luppino, 1994)
       EMSS_2004   ApJ, 608, 603
                                    (Henry 2004)

MACS               ApJ, 553, 668    Massive Cluster Survey
                                    (Ebeling+, 2001)
       MACS_MJFV   ApJS, 174, 117
                                    (Maughan+, 2008)
       MACS_BRIGHT MNRAS, 407, 83
                                    (Ebeling+, 2010)
       MACS_DIST   ApJ, 661, L33
                                    (Ebeling+, 2007)

NEP    NEP         J/ApJS/162/304   ROSAT NEP X-ray source catalog
                                    (Henry+, 2006)

NORAS/
REFLEX

       NORAS       J/ApJS/129/435   NORAS galaxy cluster survey. I.
                                    (Boehringer+, 2000)
       REFLEX      J/A+A/425/367    REFLEX Galaxy Cluster Survey Cat
                                    (Boehringer+, 2004)

SGP    SGP         J/ApJS/140/239   Clusters of galaxies around SGP
                                    (Cruddace+, 2002)

SHARC

      SHARC_BRIGHT J/ApJS/126/209   Bright SHARC survey cluster catalog
                                    (Romer+, 2000)
      SHARC_SOUTH  J/MNRAS/341/1093 The Southern SHARC catalog
                                    (Burke+, 2003)

WARPS

       WARPSI      J/ApJS/140/265   WARPS survey. VI.
                                    (Perlman+, 2002)
       WARPSII     J/ApJS/176/374   WARPS-II Cluster catalog. VII.
                                    (Horner+, 2008)

160SD

       160SD       J/ApJ/594/154    160 square degree ROSAT Survey
                                    (Mullis+, 2003)

400SD              J/ApJS/172/561   400 square degree ROSAT Cluster Survey
                                    (Burenin+, 2007)

       400SD_SER                    Serendipitous clusters

       400SD_NONSER                 Not entirely serendipitous clusters


Catalog Bibcode

2011A&A...534A.109P

References

The MCXC: a Meta-Catalogue of X-ray detected Clusters of galaxies.
    Piffaretti R., Arnaud M., Pratt G.W., Pointecouteau E., Melin J.-B.
    <Astron. Astrophys. 534, A109 (2011)>
    =2011A&A...534A.109P        (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)

Provenance

This table was originally ingested by the HEASARC in October 2011 based on the CDS catalog J/A+A/534/A109 file mcxc.dat. It was last updated in September 2023 to match the 12-Nov-2011 CDS version of the catalog. This update corrected the missing minus signs in the declinations of 6 clusters and homogenized the Abell object names.

Parameters

Name
The MCXC source designation of the cluster of galaxies, using the 'MCXC' prefix (Meta-Catalog of the compiled properties of X-ray detected Clusters of galaxies) and the J2000.0 equatorial coordinates of the cluster center, truncated to 0.1 minutes of time in RA and 1 arcminute in Dec, e.g., 'MCXC J0000.1+0816'.

Alt_Name
The name of the cluster as assigned by the authors of the included galaxy clusters catalog. This is usually constructed from the cluster coordinates (e.g., 'RX J0041.1-2339 in 160SD, 'MS0007.2-3532' in EMSS, 'MACS J0011.7-1523' in MACS, 'RXC J0000.1+0816' in NORAS/REFLEX, CIZA, and SGP, 'RX J1716.6+6410' in NEP and SHARC, 'J0022.0+0422' in WARPS). Exceptions to this format are BCS and 400SD: BCS names are listed as they appear in optical catalogs, e.g., ZwCl1432, A602, while in the 400SD, names are not assigned. The present authors therefore assigned a name to 400SD_SER clusters according to the standard SIMBAD format acronym 'BVH2007 NNN' (Burenin+Vikhlinin+Hornstrup+, 2007, e.g., BVH2007 193', and for the 400SD_NONSER they created a new acronym 'BVH2007 NS NNN', e.g., BVH2007 NS 12. For all but the 400SD clusters, the authors retained the original names as listed in the input catalogs.

Other_Names
Other names for clusters in the input catalogs are mostly based on catalogued optical counterparts to the X-ray sources: Abell and Zwicky Cluster names, names of NGC and UGC central dominant galaxies, etc.: e.g., 'A2894', 'ZwCl 0104.9+5350', 'UGC 12890'. Thus, in some cases these alternative names refer to objects that are not clusters of galaxies. In other cases, alternative names are given in the notes parameter. These other names were homogenised by the authors so as to match both SIMBAD and NED standards. Moreover, when multiple alternative names are available, they are listed separated with a comma. For 160SD and 400SD clusters, alternative names were extracted from the notes. For 160SD clusters the identifier 'VMF98 NNN' was also used. In most of the input catalogs, alternative names end with letters for double systems (e.g., 'A2384 (A)', 'A3574E', etc.). Such information is important because it indicates whether the measured luminosity refers to the whole system or to only part of it.

RA
The Right Ascension of the centroid of the cluster in the selected equinox. This was given in J2000.0 coordinates to a precision of 0.1 seconds of time in the original table. The cluster coordinates given in the original input catalogs are those of the cluster centroid determined from X-ray data (apart from those in the sub-catalog EMSS_1994 which are the coordinates of the cluster optical position).

Dec
The Declination of the centroid of the cluster in the selected equinox. This was given in J2000.0 coordinates to a precision of 1 ardsecond in the original table. The cluster coordinates given in the original input catalogs are those of the cluster centroid determined from X-ray data (apart from those in the sub-catalog EMSS_1994 which are the coordinates of the cluster optical position).

LII
The Galactic Longitude of the centroid of the cluster.

BII
The Galactic Latitude of the centroid of the cluster.

Redshift
The measured redshift of the cluster of galaxies.

Catalog_Name
The name of the catalog from which this cluster of galaxies was taken. See the Overview section above for a list of the catalogs contained in this meta-catalog.

Sub_Catalog_Name
The name of the sub-catalog (subsample of the original catalog) from which this cluster of galaxies was taken. See the Overview section above for a list of the catalogs contained in this meta-catalog.

Linear_Scale_Factor
In order to facilitate the conversion between angular r and physical sizes R, e.g., to calaculate the angular scale corresponding to R500 in Mpc, the authors provided the conversion factor F in kpc/arcsec. Thus, r = (R500 * 1000)/F.

Lx_500
The X-ray luminosity L500 of the cluster of galaxies in the 0.1 - 2.4 keV energy band, in erg s-1, for the authors' reference cosmology (Lambda-CDM with H0 = 70 km s-1 Mpc-1, OmegaM = 0.3 and OmegaLambda = 0.7) out to the R500 radius, where the 500 suffix means that the quantity has been calculated up to the standard characteristic radius within which the mean overdensity of the cluster is 500 times the critical density at the cluster redshift. The procedures used to calculate L500 are discussed in Section 3.4 of the reference paper.

Mass_500
The total mass M500 of the cluster of galaxies, in solar masses, out to the R500 radius, where the 500 suffix means that the quantity has been calculated up to the standard characteristic radius within which the mean overdensity of the cluster is 500 times the critical density at the cluster redshift, i.e., M500 = (4*pi)/3*(R500)3*500 rhoc(z), where rhoc(z) is the critical density (rhoc(z)= 3*H(z)2). The procedures used to calculate M500 are discussed in Section 3.5 of the reference paper.

Radius_500
The standard characteristic radius R500, in Mpc, being the radius of the cluster within which the mean overdensity of the cluster is 500 times the critical density at the cluster redshift.

Notes
Notes on the individual clusters of galaxies. The authors gathered together useful information concerning individual objects which they include herein. In the input catalogs, this information is usually provided as notes and comments and because it is different in type and size from catalog to catalog, its homogenisation is not straightforward. In general, the authors chose not to include detailed and extended information and they therefore refer the reader to the cited papers for more information, e.g., the notes to Table 1 in Gioia & Luppino (1994, ApJS, 94, 583) or in Table 2 of Romer et al. (2000, ApJS, 126, 209). In the following the type of information included herein is described (for the meaning of abbreviations, the reader is referred to the cited papers of each sub-catalog):

For BCS, SGP, SHARC, NEP, MACS, CIZA, and EMSS, no information is provided or is too detailed to be added in concisely.

For NORAS, the authors take information from column 'ID' in Table 1 of Boehringer et al. (2000, ApJS, 129, 435) (information on source identification).

For REFLEX, (Boehringer et al. 2004, A&AS, 425, 367), where the provided information is fairly detailed, the authors have merged the following: (i) information in column 'Cm' of Table 1 (information on source identification); (ii) the information concerning groupings as given in Table 10 with the simple note GR1, GR2, . . . , GR10 if the cluster is listed in one of the 10 groupings listed in the table; (iii) multipeak information as given in Table 11 (columns 'Morphology' and 'Orientation') are merged, as e.g., 'two maxima/NE-SW'; and (iv) information on whether the cluster is part of a line-of-sight structure as given in Table 12 (the authors simply add 'losStr' if the cluster appears in the table).

For 400SD clusters, the authors take the information given in the column 'Notes' in Table 4 of Burenin et al. (2007, ApJS, 172, 561: information on alternative names is not used).

For 160SD clusters, the authors take the information given in the column 'Notes' in Table 4 of Mullis et al. (2003, ApJ, 594, 154: information on alternative names is not used).

Overlap_Cat_1
An overlapping catalog in which the cluster of galaxies is also listed in addition to the 'primary' catalog as specified by the catalog_name parameter. The overlap between the survey areas of the input catalogs induces duplicate (and in some cases triplicate, quadruplicate, etc.) entries in the MCXC catalog. In Section 4 of the reference paper, the authors explain how multiple entries are identified and which entry is retained in the MCXC. For a given cluster, according to criteria based on the type of data and the size of the input catalog, they retain only one entry in the MCXC. Quantities from different input catalogs are not mixed or merged: for multiple input entries, they retain all physical quantities (coordinates, redshift, luminosity, etc.) as given in the selected input catalog. The full list of 2397 clusters without removal of multiple entries can be requested from the authors.

Overlap_Cat_2
An overlapping catalog in which the cluster of galaxies is also listed in addition to the 'primary' catalog as specified by the catalog_name parameter. The overlap between the survey areas of the input catalogs induces duplicate (and in some cases triplicate, quadruplicate, etc.) entries in the MCXC catalog. In Section 4 of the reference paper, the authors explain how multiple entries are identified and which entry is retained in the MCXC. For a given cluster, according to criteria based on the type of data and the size of the input catalog, they retain only one entry in the MCXC. Quantities from different input catalogs are not mixed or merged: for multiple input entries, they retain all physical quantities (coordinates, redshift, luminosity, etc.) as given in the selected input catalog. The full list of 2397 clusters without removal of multiple entries can be requested from the authors.

Overlap_Cat_3
An overlapping catalog in which the cluster of galaxies is also listed in addition to the 'primary' catalog as specified by the catalog_name parameter. The overlap between the survey areas of the input catalogs induces duplicate (and in some cases triplicate, quadruplicate, etc.) entries in the MCXC catalog. In Section 4 of the reference paper, the authors explain how multiple entries are identified and which entry is retained in the MCXC. For a given cluster, according to criteria based on the type of data and the size of the input catalog, they retain only one entry in the MCXC. Quantities from different input catalogs are not mixed or merged: for multiple input entries, they retain all physical quantities (coordinates, redshift, luminosity, etc.) as given in the selected input catalog. The full list of 2397 clusters without removal of multiple entries can be requested from the authors.

Overlap_Cat_4
An overlapping catalog in which the cluster of galaxies is also listed in addition to the 'primary' catalog as specified by the catalog_name parameter. The overlap between the survey areas of the input catalogs induces duplicate (and in some cases triplicate, quadruplicate, etc.) entries in the MCXC catalog. In Section 4 of the reference paper, the authors explain how multiple entries are identified and which entry is retained in the MCXC. For a given cluster, according to criteria based on the type of data and the size of the input catalog, they retain only one entry in the MCXC. Quantities from different input catalogs are not mixed or merged: for multiple input entries, they retain all physical quantities (coordinates, redshift, luminosity, etc.) as given in the selected input catalog. The full list of 2397 clusters without removal of multiple entries can be requested from the authors.

Lx_Ratio_Cat_1
The ratio of the L500 values for the cluster of galaxies between the primary catalog and the first overlap catalog. The procedure adopted to handle clusters with multiple entries in different catalogs (detailed in Section 4 of the reference paper) allows the authors to compare L500 estimates derived from different input luminosity measurements. For each of the 558 MCXC clusters that are members of more than one input catalog, the authors compute the ratio L500/LMCXC where LMCXC is the luminosity given in the MCXC (the lx_500 parameter in this table) and L500 is the luminosity of the same cluster, but derived from a different input catalog (i.e., the overlap luminosity). As explained in Section 4 of the reference paper, in some cases the redshifts provided by the input catalog can be fairly different. The authors therefore correct the luminosities of the overlaps by multiplying them with the squared ratio of the luminosity distances at the two different redshifts. This is equivalent to comparing the 0.1-2.4 keV band fluxes within R500.

Lx_Ratio_Cat_2
The ratio of the L500 values for the cluster of galaxies between the primary catalog and the second overlap catalog. The procedure adopted to handle clusters with multiple entries in different catalogs (detailed in Section 4 of the reference paper) allows the authors to compare L500 estimates derived from different input luminosity measurements. For each of the 558 MCXC clusters that are members of more than one input catalog, the authors compute the ratio L500/LMCXC where LMCXC is the luminosity given in the MCXC (the lx_500 parameter in this table) and L500 is the luminosity of the same cluster, but derived from a different input catalog (i.e., the overlap luminosity). As explained in Section 4 of the reference paper, in some cases the redshifts provided by the input catalog can be fairly different. The authors therefore correct the luminosities of the overlaps by multiplying them with the squared ratio of the luminosity distances at the two different redshifts. This is equivalent to comparing the 0.1-2.4 keV band fluxes within R500.

Lx_Ratio_Cat_3
The ratio of the L500 values for the cluster of galaxies between the primary catalog and the third overlap catalog. The procedure adopted to handle clusters with multiple entries in different catalogs (detailed in Section 4 of the reference paper) allows the authors to compare L500 estimates derived from different input luminosity measurements. For each of the 558 MCXC clusters that are members of more than one input catalog, the authors compute the ratio L500/LMCXC where LMCXC is the luminosity given in the MCXC (the lx_500 parameter in this table) and L500 is the luminosity of the same cluster, but derived from a different input catalog (i.e., the overlap luminosity). As explained in Section 4 of the reference paper, in some cases the redshifts provided by the input catalog can be fairly different. The authors therefore correct the luminosities of the overlaps by multiplying them with the squared ratio of the luminosity distances at the two different redshifts. This is equivalent to comparing the 0.1-2.4 keV band fluxes within R500.

Lx_Ratio_Cat_4
The ratio of the L500 values for the cluster of galaxies between the primary catalog and the fourth overlap catalog. The procedure adopted to handle clusters with multiple entries in different catalogs (detailed in Section 4 of the reference paper) allows the authors to compare L500 estimates derived from different input luminosity measurements. For each of the 558 MCXC clusters that are members of more than one input catalog, the authors compute the ratio L500/LMCXC where LMCXC is the luminosity given in the MCXC (the lx_500 parameter in this table) and L500 is the luminosity of the same cluster, but derived from a different input catalog (i.e., the overlap luminosity). As explained in Section 4 of the reference paper, in some cases the redshifts provided by the input catalog can be fairly different. The authors therefore correct the luminosities of the overlaps by multiplying them with the squared ratio of the luminosity distances at the two different redshifts. This is equivalent to comparing the 0.1-2.4 keV band fluxes within R500.


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Page Author: Browse Software Development Team
Last Modified: Monday, 18-Sep-2023 16:48:41 EDT