TheXMM‐NewtonWide‐Field Survey in the COSMOS Field. I. Survey Description

We present the first set of XMM-Newton EPIC observations in the 2 squaredegree COSMOS field. The strength of the COSMOS project is the unprecedentedcombination of a large solid angle and sensitivity over the wholemultiwavelength spectrum. The XMM-Newton observations are very efficient inlocalizing and identifying active galactic nuclei (AGN) and clusters as well asgroups of galaxies. One of the primary goals of the XMM-Newton Cosmos survey isto study the co-evolution of active galactic nuclei as a function of theirenvironment in the Cosmic web. Here we present the log of observations, imagesand a summary of first research highlights for the first pass of 25 XMM-Newtonpointings across the field. In the existing dataset we have detected 1416 newX-ray sources in the 0.5-2, 2-4.5 and 4.5-10 keV bands to an equivalent 0.5-2keV flux limit of 7x10-16 erg cm-2 s-1. The number of sources is expected togrow to almost 2000 in the final coverage of the survey. From an X-ray colorcolor analysis we identify a population of heavily obscured, partially leaky orreflecting absorbers, most of which are likely to be nearby, Compton-thick AGN.