Hard X-Ray sources observed by INTEGRAL/IBIS and their science

Abstract

After more than 5.5 years of in flight lifetime, the ESA space observatory INTEGRAL is depicting a new scenario in the soft gamma Ray domain. With the observation and discovery of more than 400 hard X-Ray sources has changed our view of a moderately crowded and dark sky basically populated by "peculiar" and erratic sources. The new high energy sky is also composed by a large variety of "normal" though very powerful objects, characterized by new accretion and acceleration processes. Among the 421 sources detected in the energy range 17-100 keV the 3rd INTEGRAL/IBIS catalogue includes 41% galactic accreting system, 29% extragalactic objects, 8% of other types, and 26% not classified i.e. of unknown origin. If compared to to previous IBIS/ISGRI surveys it is clear that there is a continuous increase of the rate of discovery of HMXB, an increase in the number of AGN discovered, including a variety of distant QSOs, basically due to the increased exposure away from the Galaxy Plane, while the percentage of sources without an identification has remained constant. INTEGRAL, by the end of Y6, will complete the Core Programme observation due to provide an almost constant exposure of the whole Galaxy Plane and will be fully open to the scientific community for Open Time and Key Programme observations from the beginning of 2009. In this paper we shortly review the main outcome of the 3rd INTEGRAL/IBIS catalogue (cat3) including an excursus of the INTEGRAL high energy sky with particular regard to sources emitting at high energy, including Low and High Mass X-Ray Binaries (LMXB & HMXB), Supergiant Fast X-Ray Transients (SFXT), Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWN) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).