Evidence for a New Class of Extreme UV Sources

Most of the sources detected in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV; 100 Ang to 600 Ang) by the Rosat WFC and EUVE all-sky surveys have been identified with active late-type stars and hot white dwarfs that are near enough to escape absorption by interstellar gas. However, about 15% of EUV sources are as of yet unidentified with any optical counterparts. We examine whether the unidentified EUV sources may consist of the same population of late-type stars and white dwarfs. We present B and R photometry of stars in the fields of seven of the unidentified EUV sources. We detect in the optical the entire main-sequence and white-dwarf population out to the greatest distances where they could still avoid absorption. We use colour-magnitude diagrams to demonstrate that, in most of the fields, none of the observed stars have the colours and magnitudes of late-type dwarfs at distances less than 100 pc. Similarly, none are white dwarfs within 500 pc that are hot enough to be EUV-emitters. The unidentified EUV sources we study are not detected in X-rays, while cataclysmic variables, X-ray binaries, and active galactic nuclei generally are. We conclude that some of the EUV sources may be a new class of nearby objects, that are either very faint at optical bands or which mimic the colours and magnitudes of distant late-type stars or cool white dwarfs. One candidate for optically faint objects is isolated old neutron stars, slowly accreting interstellar matter. Such neutron stars are expected to be abundant in the Galaxy, and have not been unambiguously detected.