The General Reference Catalog is the master table listing all known high-energy sources of relevance to INTEGRAL . Currently, version 33 of the catalog contains 2,000 objects. These objects are all those that have been detected by INTEGRAL or that are known to be brighter than 1mCrab in the 1keV to 10MeV band. The catalog is updated regularly when there are enough new sources or changes to warrant a new release. The latest catalog can be retrieved online (http://www.isdc.unige.ch/integral/science/catalogue). At this URL, versions in HTML, TEX, and ASCII are available to complement the FITS file.
The objects in the catalog were compiled from the following sources:
In the catalog, you will find information on the name(s) of a source, its position, and error. Identifiers are SIMBAD-compliant and all positions are referenced. Sources in the HTML version have names that link directly to the relevant page in SIMBAD and a position that links to the reference in ADS.
Each source is given a Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) model with parameters such as column density, photon index, and normalization. These models are used to determine counting rates in two bands for ISGRI and JEM-X. This enables the user to select for analysis only sources that are brighter or weaker than a given value. There are a few dozen sources for which models are well understood. We use values from the literature when they are available. In most cases, we assign default models and parameters depending on the source type, and then offer a normalization that can be adjusted to reflect INTEGRAL observations that are made public. Table 3 lists the default models and parameters for sources in the catalog. Details of the models are provided after the table. Keep in mind that the models approximate the behavior and do not necessarily reflect actual counting rates.
An instrument-specific flag in the catalog informs the user of sources that have been detected by an INTEGRAL instrument. For example, a subset of the catalog can be built by extracting all sources that have been seen by ISGRI. The values of the ISGRI FLAG are:
From version 31 of the catalog a new ISGRI flag (ISGRI_FLAG2) has been introduced, and its values are:
Flags for JEM-X, SPI and PICsIT have the value 0 if not detected, and 1 if detected.
Here are two ways to use this feature:
CAT_refCat="gnrl_refr_cat_0033.fits[1][ISGRI_FLAG==1]"
The examples shown above for the ISGRI FLAG also work for JEMX_FLAG, SPI_FLAG, and PICSIT_FLAG, and they can even be combined:
CAT_refCat="gnrl_refr_cat_0033.fits[1][ISGRI_FLAG==1 && SPI_FLAG==1]"
The references used to set flags include lists of JEM-X sources, the SPI Bright Source Catalog, survey results, publications, public data from IQLA, and scientists working on private data.
| Source Type | SED Model | E | E | E | |||
| [10 cm ] | [keV] | [keV] | [keV] | ||||
| X-ray Binaries | |||||||
| LMXB | wabs cutoff | 1.0 | 1.7 | - | 5 | - | - |
| LMXB with hardtail | wabs (cutoff+powerlaw) | 1.0 | 1.7 | 2.5 | 10 | - | - |
| HMXB | wabs highecut powerlaw | 1.0 | 1.0 | - | 10 | 15 | - |
| AGN | |||||||
| Seyfert I | wabs cutoff | 1.0 | 1.7 | - | 100 | - | - |
| Seyfert II | wabs cutoff | 10.0 | 1.7 | - | 100 | - | - |
| Blazar | wabs cutoff | 1.0 | 1.7 | - | 100 | - | - |
| Quasar | wabs cutoff | 1.0 | 1.7 | - | 100 | - | - |
| Radio Pulsars | |||||||
| Radio Pulsar | wabs powerlaw | 1.0 | 2.0 | - | - | - | - |
| Unidentified | |||||||
| X-band detection | wabs cutoff | 1.0 | 1.7 | - | 10 | - | - |
| COMPTEL detection | wabs bknpower | 100.0 | -1.5 | 2.1 | - | - | 1000 |
| EGRET detection | wabs bknpower | 100.0 | -1.5 | 2.1 | - | - | 10000 |
| INTEGRAL detection | wabs power (A = 0) | 1.0 | 1.7 | - | - | - | - |
|---|
| (1) |
| (2) |
| (3) |
| (4) |
| (5) |
| (6) |
| (7) |
| energy [keV] | |
| reference energy [keV] (1 keV in XSPEC) | |
| exponential cutoff energy [keV] | |
| exponential folding energy [keV] | |
| break energy [keV] | |
| photon index for | |
| photon index for | |
| column density of hydrogen [10 atomscm | |
| monochromatic flux at energy E [photonscm s ] | |
| normalization ( ) at 1 keV [photonscm s keV ] | |
| absorption coefficient of at energy | |
| photoelectric cross section (excluding Thompson scattering) |
In Table 4, the content of the catalog is given. Columns in bold are the minimum you should fill to add a new source into the catalog. For the SOURCE_ID, you can enter whatever you want, but make sure that this entry is unique. The class codes for the General Reference Catalog can be found online (http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/catalog/class.html). Note that the FITS format of the catalog truncates names and comments that are longer than 20 and 128 characters, respectively. For this reason, sources such as 1RXS or XMMU will lack the last digit in their name. Users are advised to refer to the HTML version for complete names and comments (http://www.isdc.unige.ch/integral/science/catalogue).
| Column Name | Description |
| SOURCE_ID | ISDC unique source identifier |
| DAY_ID | Modified Julian Date of source's first identification |
| NAME | One commonly used name for the source |
| CLASS | Source classification code |
| RA_OBJ | Source right ascension in degrees |
| DEC_OBJ | Source declination in degrees |
| ERR_RAD | Error radius in degrees |
| ISGRI_FLAG | ISGRI detection flag (0:undetected, 1:detected, 2:source detected and a position is available with a precision ) |
| ISGRI_FLAG2 | ISGRI detection flag (0:undetected,1:detected in a single science window,2:detected in a mosaic,5:very bright source, used for screening of background and images) |
| JEMX_FLAG | JEMX detection flag (0:undetected, 1:detected) |
| SPI_FLAG | SPI detection flag (0:undetected, 1:detected) |
| PICSIT_FLAG | PICsIT detection flag (0:undetected, 1:detected) |
| data for simulator | |
| SPA_MODL | Model for source spatial extension (point, disk, ellipse, square, gaussian, Bspline, etc.) |
| SPA_NPAR | Number of parameters for source spatial extension |
| SPA_PARS | Parameters for source spatial extension |
| SPE_MODL | Model for source spectrum (XSPEC syntax) |
| SPE_NPAR | Number of parameters for source spectrum |
| SPE_PARS | Parameters for source spectrum |
| VAR_MODL | Model for source intensity variability (const, sin, burst) |
| VAR_NPAR | Number of parameters for source intensity variability |
| VAR_PARS | Parameters for source intensity variability |
| COMMENTS | Aliases, comments |
selection parameters which can be used by cat_extract |
|
| SPI_FLUX_1 | SPI flux (photon/s/cm2 ) in the soft SPI energy band (15 - 300 keV) |
| SPI_FLUX_2 | SPI flux (photon/s/cm2 ) in the hard SPI energy band (300 - 8000 keV) |
| ISGR_FLUX_1 | ISGRI flux (count/s) in the soft ISGRI energy band (20 - 60 keV) |
| ISGR_FLUX_2 | ISGRI flux (count/s) in the hard ISGRI energy band (60 - 200 keV) |
| PICS_FLUX_1 | PICsIT flux (count/s) in the soft PICsIT energy band (100 - 600 keV) |
| PICS_FLUX_2 | PICsIT flux (count/s) in the hard PICsIT energy band (600 - 6000 keV) |
| JEMX_FLUX_1 | JEM-X flux (count/s) in the soft JEM-X energy band (3 - 10 keV) |
| JEMX_FLUX_2 | JEM-X flux (count/s) in the hard JEM-X energy band (10 - 50 keV) |
| E_MIN | Vector of lower energy boundaries (keV) |
| E_MAX | Vector of upper energy boundaries |
| FLUX | Vector of flux values (photon/s/cm2 ) |
| FLUX_ERR | Vector of flux errors (photon/s/cm2 ) |
| SEL_FLAG | Source selection flag - not filled at the moment |
| FLAG | Generic flag |
During the analysis, the Catalog Source List, which contains the list of sources observed by an
INTEGRAL instrument in the given field of view, is extracted from the General Reference Catalog
with the cat_extract program. The resulting Catalog Source List is in a similar format as
the General Reference Catalog, but, starting at this level, the distinction between the different
instruments is made. In Table 5
you will find descriptions of the columns that are added to the output catalogs.
| Column Name | Description |
| Columns added in the output catalogs of all instruments | |
| DETSIG | Source detection significance |
| RELDIST | Relative distance of the source (= d/(r1 + r2), where d is the distance to the catalog source identified with the detected source and r1, r2 are the respective error radii of the sources) |
| Columns added to the output ISGRI catalog (ISGR-SRCL-RES) | |
| NEW_SOURCE | New source flag (0 if old, 1 if new) |
| RA_FIN | Right Ascension of the found position of the source |
| DEC_FIN | Declination of the found position of the source |
| FIN_RD_ERR | Error of the found position of the source in RA and DEC |
| SCW_NUM_C | number of times that the source was in ScW FOV. If SCW_NUM_C = 0 then it is a new source |
| SCW_NUM F | number of times that the source was found in ScW image |
| OG_NUM | number of times that the source was found in OG image |
| Columns added to the output JEM-X catalog (JEMX-SRCL-RES) | |
| COSX_JMX | Direction cosine between X-axis and source in instrument coordinates |
| COSY_JMX | Direction cosine between Y-axis and source in instrument coordinates |
| COSZ_JMX | Direction cosine between Z-axis and source in instrument coordinates |