We conduct X-ray spectral fits on 184 likely counterparts to Fermi-LAT 3FGL unassociated sources. Characterization and classification of these sources allows for more complete population studies of the high-energy sky. Most of these X-ray spectra are well fit by an absorbed power-law model, as expected for a population dominated by blazars and pulsars. A small subset of seven X-ray sources have spectra unlike the power law expected from a blazar or pulsar and may be linked to coincident stars or background emission. We develop a multiwavelength machine learning classifier to categorize unassociated sources into pulsars and blazars using gamma-ray and X-ray observations. Training a random forest (RF) procedure with known pulsars and blazars, we achieve a cross-validated classification accuracy of 98.6%. Applying the RF routine to the unassociated sources returned 126 likely blazar candidates (defined as P bzr ≥ 90%) and five likely pulsar candidates (P bzr ≤ 10%). Our new X-ray spectral analysis does not drastically alter the RF classifications of these sources compared to previous works, but it builds a more robust classification scheme and highlights the importance of X-ray spectral fitting. Our procedure can be further expanded with UV, visual, or radio spectral parameters or by measuring flux variability.

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Next-generation x-ray observatories, such as the Lynx X-ray Observatory Mission Concept or other similar concepts in the coming decade, will require detectors with high quantum efficiency (QE) across the soft x-ray band to observe the faint objects that drive their mission science objectives. Hybrid CMOS detectors (HCDs), a form of active-pixel sensor, are promising candidates for use on these missions because of their fast read-out, low power consumption, and intrinsic radiation hardness. We present QE measurements of a Teledyne H2RG HCD, performed using a gas-flow proportional counter as a reference detector. We find that this detector achieves high QE across the soft x-ray band, with an effective QE of 94.6 AE 1.1% at the Mn Kα∕Kβ energies (5.90/6.49 keV), 98.3 AE 1.9% at the Al Kα energy (1.49 keV), 85.6 AE 2.8% at the O Kα energy (0.52 keV), and 61.3 AE 1.1% at the C Kα energy (0.28 keV). These values are in good agreement with our model, based on the absorption of detector layers. We find similar results in a more restrictive analysis considering only high-quality events, with only somewhat reduced QE at lower energies.

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