The SSC has also conducted optical identification programs at the telescope for 4 subsets.
Strasbourg has led the low-latitude Galactic identification program of about a thousand sources in order to best describe the Galactic-induced anisotropy effects (e.g., Motch et al. 2010, Nebot et al. 2013 and Nebot et al. 2015). This program is based on a number of science unbiased goals to study the nature of low-luminosity accreting X-ray sources, sources that have eluded the less sensitive instruments of the previous generation. The ultimate scientific goal is to better understand their evolutionary status, highlight new classes and detect rare objects, e.g. short-lived stages of the evolution of binaries, Gamma-Cas stars (Lopes de Olivera et al. 2011, Smith et al. 2015), neutron stars and isolated black holes (e.g. Pires et al. 2008).
Finally, the Strasbourg team coordinated the process of statistical identification of EPIC sources. This project relies on the use of subsets of sources completely identified in the literature, or from dedicated ground-based observation programs, to statistically ‘calibrate’ the nature of the set of X sources (Pineau et al. 2011). The development of statistical cross-correlation methods has been pursued within the ARCHES project.