An XMM-Newton Survey of Rich Open Clusters

We know from observations that globular clusters are efficient catalysts informing unusual close binary systems and their offspring, and we seek to explorethis phenomenon in rich open clusters. We propose a uniform survey of 8 nearbyclusters spanning a range of ages and metallicities. The large field of view,high sensitivity, and spatial resolution of XMM are wellmatched to such asurvey. Similar studies of globulars, undertaken by us, have revealed a linkbetween a cluster.s internal dynamics and its population of Xray sources. Wewill examine this link in a regime of stellar density and encounter frequencythat is only accessible via the study of open clusters. In addition, UV andUband photometry will be invaluable to our ongoing studies of open cluster binaries. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]