About the Xatlas Catalog
Nearly 30 years after the discovery of X-ray emission from
OB stars, the exact mechanisms responsible remain a mystery.
Major advances in our understanding of such emission have been
made, however, since the lauch of the Chandra X-ray
Observatory in 1999 and the subsequent availability of
high-resolution transmission grating spectra of numerous hot
stars. To facilitate the rapid comparison and
characterization of hot star spectra, we are compiling a
database of all O, B and Wolf-Rayet stars observed with
Chandra's High Energy Transmission Grating (HETG). This
database, known as Xatlas, will be accessible through a web
interface with searching and interactive plotting
capabilities. In addition to high-resolution HETG data,
Xatlas will also feature simulations of the low-resolution
ACIS-S and ACIS-I spectra convolved from the high-resolution
spectra for each target, potentially enabling further
scientific analysis of the low-resolution spectra of the hot
stars in existing Chandra images. Currently slated for
release in the first quarter of 2007, Xatlas will initially
offer 55 observations of over 25 hot stars and provide a
practical and user-friendly resource for the astronomical
community.