Near-infrared counterparts to the Galactic Bulge Survey X-ray source population

Abstract

We report on the near-infrared matches, drawn from three surveys, to the 1640 unique X-ray sources detected by Chandra in the Galactic Bulge Survey (GBS). This survey targets faint X-ray sources in the Bulge, with a particular focus on accreting compact objects. We present all viable counterpart candidates and associate a false alarm probability (FAP) to each near-infrared match in order to identify the most likely counterparts. The false alarm probability takes into account a statistical study involving a chance alignment test, as well as considering the positional accuracy of the individual X-ray sources. We find that although the star density in the Bulge is very high, ~90% of our sources have a false alarm probability < 10%, indicating that for most X-ray sources, viable near-infrared counterparts candidates can be identified. In addition to the FAP, we provide positional and photometric information for candidate counterparts to ~95% of the GBS X-ray sources. This information in combination with optical photometry, spectroscopy and variability constraints will be crucial to characterize and classify secure counterparts.