XMM-Newton 13H deep field -: I.: X-ray sources

We present the results of a deep X-ray survey conducted with XMM-Newton, centred on the UK ROSAT H-13 deep field area. This region covers 0.18 deg(2), and is the first of the two areas covered with XMM-Newton as part of an extensive multiwavelength survey designed to study the nature and evolution of the faint X-ray source population. We have produced detailed Monte Carlo simulations to obtain a quantitative characterization of the source detection procedure and to assess the reliability of the resultant sourcelist. We use the simulations to establish a likelihood threshold, above which we expect less than seven ( 3 per cent) of our sources to be spurious. We present the final catalogue of 225 sources. Within the central 9 arcmin, 68 per cent of source positions are accurate to 2 arcsec, making optical follow-up relatively straightforward. We construct the N(> S) relation in four energy bands: 0.2-0.5, 0.5-2, 2-5 and 5-10 keV. In all but our highest energy band we find that the source counts can be represented by a double power law with a bright-end slope consistent with the Euclidean case and a break around 10(-14y) erg cm(-2) s(-1). Below this flux, the counts exhibit a flattening. Our source counts reach densities of 700, 1300, 900 and 300 deg(-2) at fluxes of 4.1 x 10(-16), 4.5 x 10(-16), 1.1 x 10(-15) and 5.3 x 10(-15) erg cm(-2) s(-1) in the 0.2-0.5, 0.5-2, 2-5 and 5-10 keV energy bands, respectively. We have compared our source counts with those in the two Chandra deep fields and Lockman hole, and found our source counts to be amongst the highest of these fields in all energy bands. We resolve > 51 per cent (> 50 per cent) of the X-ray background emission in the 1-2 keV (2-5 keV) energy bands.