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It has become clear that early career astrophysics researchers (doctoral researchers, post-docs, etc) have a very diverse appreciation of their career, with some declaring it the best job that you can have and others suffering from overwork, harrassment and stress from the precarity of their job, and associated difficulties. In order to establish how astrophysics researchers, primarily in France, experience their career, we sent out a survey to understand the impact that their job has on their well-being. 276 people responded to the survey. Whilst around half of the respondents expressed pleasure derived from their career, it is clear that many (early career) researchers are suffering due to overwork, with more than a quarter saying that they work in excess of 50 hours per week and 2\% in excess of 90 h per week. Almost 30\% professed to having suffered harrassment or discrimination in the course of their work. Further, whilst only 20\% had suffered mental health issues before starting their career in astrophysics, $\sim$45\% said that they suffered with mental health problems since starting in astrophysics. Here we provide results from the survey as well as possible avenues to explore and a list of recommendations to improve (early) careers in astrophysics., Comment: 6 page conference proceedings on well-being in French astrophysics

We report on the temporal properties of the ULX pulsar M51 ULX-7 inferred from the analysis of the 2018-2020 Swift/XRT monitoring data and archival Chandra data obtained over a period of 33 days in 2012. We find an extended low flux state, which might be indicative of propeller transition, lending further support to the interpretation that the NS is rotating near equilibrium. Alternatively, this off state could be related to a variable super-orbital period. Moreover, we report the discovery of periodic dips in the X-ray light curve that are associated with the binary orbital period. The presence of the dips implies a configuration where the orbital plane of the binary is closer to an edge on orientation, and thus demonstrates that favorable geometries are not necessary in order to observe ULX pulsars.These characteristics are similar to those seen in prototypical X-ray pulsars like Her X-1 and SMC X-1 or other ULX pulsars like NGC 5907 ULX1., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, Accepted to APJ

Supersoft X-ray sources (SSS) have been identified as white dwarfs accreting from binary companions and undergoing nuclear-burning of the accreted material on their surface. Although expected to be a relatively numerous population from both binary evolution models and their identification as Type Ia supernova progenitor candidates, given the very soft spectrum of SSSs relatively few are known. Here we report on the X-ray and optical properties of 1RXS J050526.3-684628, a previously unidentified accreting nuclear-burning white dwarf located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). XMM-Newton observations enabled us to study its X-ray spectrum and measure for the first time short period oscillations of ~170 s. By analysing newly obtained X-ray data by eROSITA, together with Swift observations and archival ROSAT data, we have followed its long-term evolution over the last 3 decades. We identify 1RXS J050526.3-684628 as a slowly-evolving post-nova SSS undergoing residual surface nuclear-burning, which finally reached its peak in 2013 and is now declining. Though long expected on theoretical grounds, such long-lived residual-burning objects had not yet been found. By comparison with existing models, we find that the effective temperature and luminosity evolution are consistent with a ~0.7 $M_{\odot}$ carbon-oxygen white dwarf accreting ~10$^{-9}~\rm{M}_{\odot}$/yr. Our results suggest there may be many more undiscovered SSSs and "missed" novae awaiting dedicated deep X-ray searches in the LMC and elsewhere., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre Consortium (SSC) develops software in close collaboration with the Science Operations Centre to perform a pipeline analysis of all XMM-Newton observations. In celebration of the 20th launch anniversary, the SSC has compiled the 4th generation of serendipitous source catalogues, 4XMM. The catalogue described here, 4XMM-DR9s, explores sky areas that were observed more than once by XMM-Newton. It was constructed from simultaneous source detection on the overlapping observations, which were bundled in groups ("stacks"). Stacking leads to a higher sensitivity, resulting in newly discovered sources and better constrained source parameters, and unveils long-term brightness variations. As a novel feature, positional rectification was applied beforehand. Observations with all filters and suitable camera settings were included. Exposures with a high background were discarded, which was determined through a statistical analysis of all exposures in each instrument configuration. The X-ray background maps used in source detection were modelled via adaptive smoothing with newly determined parameters. Source fluxes were derived for all contributing observations, irrespective of whether the source would be detectable in an individual observation. From 1,329 stacks with 6,604 contributing observations over repeatedly covered 300 square degrees in the sky, 4XMM-DR9s lists 288,191 sources. 218,283 of them were observed several times. Most stacks are composed of two observations, the largest one comprises 352. The number of observations of a source ranges from 1 to 40. Auxiliary products like X-ray images, long-term light curves, and optical finding charts are published as well. 4XMM-DR9s is considered a prime resource to explore long-term variability of X-ray sources discovered by XMM-Newton. Regular incremental releases including new public observations are planned., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 20 pages

Sky surveys produce enormous quantities of data on extensive regions of the sky. The easiest way to access this information is through catalogues of standardised data products. {\em XMM-Newton} has been surveying the sky in the X-ray, ultra-violet, and optical bands for 20 years. The {\em XMM-Newton} Survey Science Centre has been producing standardised data products and catalogues to facilitate access to the serendipitous X-ray sky. Using improved calibration and enhanced software, we re-reduced all of the 14041 {\em XMM-Newton} X-ray observations, of which 11204 observations contained data with at least one detection and with these we created a new, high quality version of the {\em XMM-Newton} serendipitous source catalogue, 4XMM-DR9. 4XMM-DR9 contains 810795 detections down to a detection significance of 3 $\sigma$, of which 550124 are unique sources, which cover 1152 degrees$^{2}$ (2.85\%) of the sky. Filtering 4XMM-DR9 to retain only the cleanest sources with at least a 5 $\sigma$ detection significance leaves 433612 detections. Of these detections, 99.6\% have no pileup. Furthermore, 336 columns of information on each detection are provided, along with images. The quality of the source detection is shown to have improved significantly with respect to previous versions of the catalogues. Spectra and lightcurves are also made available for more than 288000 of the brightest sources (36\% of all detections)., Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, accepted to be published Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A)

We aimed to identify the variable X-ray source 3XMM J000511.8+634018, which was serendipitously discovered through routine inspections while the 3XMM catalogue was compiled. We analysed the archival XMM-Newton observation of the source, obtained BUSCA photometry in three colours, and performed optical spectroscopy with the LBT. These data were supplemented by archival observations from the Zwicky Transient Facility. Based on its optical and X-ray properties, 3XMM J000511.8+634018 is classified as a magnetic cataclysmic variable, or polar. The flux is modulated with a period of 2.22 hr (8009.1 +- 0.2 s), which we identify with the orbital period. The bright phases are highly variable in X-ray luminosity from one cycle to the next. The source shows a thermal plasma spectrum typical of polars without evidence of a luminous soft blackbody-like component. It is non-eclipsing and displays one-pole accretion. The X-ray and BUSCA light curves show a stream absorption dip, which suggests an inclination 50degr < i < 75degr. The phasing of this feature, which occurs at the end of the bright phase, requires a somewhat special accretion geometry with a stream running far around the white dwarf before it is magnetically channelled. The period of this polar falls within the period gap of the cataclysmic variables (2.15-3.18 h), but appears to fall just below the minimum period when only polars are considered., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

In the current work we explore the applicability of standard theoretical models of accretion to the observed properties of M51 ULX-7. The spin-up rate and observed X-ray luminosity are evidence of a neutron star with a surface magnetic field of $2-7\times10^{13}$ G, rotating near equilibrium. Analysis of the X-ray light-curve of the system (Swift/XRT data) reveals the presence of a $\sim$39 d super-orbital period. We argue that the super-orbital periodicity is due to disc precession, and that material is accreted onto the neutron star at a constant rate throughout it. Moreover, by attributing this modulation to the free precession of the neutron star we estimate a surface magnetic field strength of $3-4\times10^{13}$ G. The agreement of these two independent estimates provide strong constraints on the surface polar magnetic field strength of the neutron star., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

NGC300 ULX1 is an ultra-luminous X-ray pulsar, showing an unprecedented spin evolution, from about 126 s to less than 20 s in only 4 years, consistent with steady mass accretion rate. Following its discovery we have been monitoring the system with Swift/XRT and NICER to further study its properties. We found that even though the observed flux of the system dropped by a factor of $\gtrsim$20, the spin-up rate remained almost constant. A possible explanation is that the decrease in the observed flux is a result of increased absorption of obscuring material due to outflows or a precessing accretion disk., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, MNRAS in press

XMM-Newton has observed the X-ray sky since early 2000. The XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre Consortium has published catalogues of X-ray and ultraviolet sources found serendipitously in the individual observations. This series is now augmented by a catalogue dedicated to X-ray sources detected in spatially overlapping XMM-Newton observations. The aim of this catalogue is to explore repeatedly observed sky regions. It thus makes use of the long(er) effective exposure time per sky area and offers the opportunity to investigate long-term flux variability directly through the source detection process. A new standardised strategy for simultaneous source detection on multiple observations is introduced. It is coded as a new task within the XMM-Newton Science Analysis System and used to compile a catalogue of sources from 434 stacks comprising 1,789 overlapping XMM-Newton observations that entered the 3XMM-DR7 catalogue, have a low background and full-frame readout of all EPIC cameras. The first stacked catalogue is called 3XMM-DR7s. It contains 71,951 unique sources with positions and parameters such as fluxes, hardness ratios, quality estimates, and information on inter-observation variability. About 15% of the sources are new with respect to 3XMM-DR7. Through stacked source detection, the parameters of repeatedly observed sources can be determined with higher accuracy than in the individual observations. The method is more sensitive to faint sources and tends to produce fewer spurious detections. With this first stacked catalogue we demonstrate the feasibility and benefit of the approach. It supplements the large data base of XMM-Newton detections by additional, in particular faint, sources and adds variability information. In the future, the catalogue will be expanded to larger samples and continued within the series of serendipitous XMM-Newton source catalogues., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 27 pages, ~4MB

Thanks to the large collecting area (3 x ~1500 cm$^2$ at 1.5 keV) and wide field of view (30' across in full field mode) of the X-ray cameras on board the European Space Agency X-ray observatory XMM-Newton, each individual pointing can result in the detection of hundreds of X-ray sources, most of which are newly discovered. Recently, many improvements in the XMM-Newton data reduction algorithms have been made. These include enhanced source characterisation and reduced spurious source detections, refined astrometric precision, greater net sensitivity and the extraction of spectra and time series for fainter sources, with better signal-to-noise. Further, almost 50\% more observations are in the public domain compared to 2XMMi-DR3, allowing the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (XMM-SSC) to produce a much larger and better quality X-ray source catalogue. The XMM-SSC has developed a pipeline to reduce the XMM-Newton data automatically and using improved calibration a new catalogue version has been produced from XMM-Newton data made public by 2013 Dec. 31 (13 years of data). Manual screening ensures the highest data quality. This catalogue is known as 3XMM. In the latest release, 3XMM-DR5, there are 565962 X-ray detections comprising 396910 unique X-ray sources. For the 133000 brightest sources, spectra and lightcurves are provided. For all detections, the positions on the sky, a measure of the quality of the detection, and an evaluation of the X-ray variability is provided, along with the fluxes and count rates in 7 X-ray energy bands, the total 0.2-12 keV band counts, and four hardness ratios. To identify the detections, a cross correlation with 228 catalogues is also provided for each X-ray detection. 3XMM-DR5 is the largest X-ray source catalogue ever produced. Thanks to the large array of data products, it is an excellent resource in which to find new and extreme objects., Comment: 23 pages, version accepted for publication in A&A