Abstract
Supersoft X-ray Sources (SSSs) and Quasisoft X-ray Sources (QSSs), collectively known as Very Soft Sources (VSSs), are observationally defined as X-ray sources having no or little emission above 1 keV together with energy spectra exhibiting characteristic temperature of tens of eV and roughly between 175 to 350 keV respectively. A systematic search in the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) was done using public archival data of the XMM-Newton observatory spanning from year 2000 to 2009. The VSSs candidates were identified using an automated source selection program based on hardness ratio criteria defined by count rates in three different energy bands (0.1-1.1 keV, 1.1-2.0 keV, 2.0-7.0 keV). Potential sources were checked for optical (USNO-B1.0) and infrared (2MASS) counterparts using automatic catalogue-querying scripts in order to verify their identity and to screen out foreground stars. The algorithm is effective in recovering previously identified VSSs in the MCs. Moreover, it enables us to investigate long-term X-Ray variability of these sources by comparing multiple data sets and serves as a tool for discovering new VSS candidates in other sky regions. This project is supported by the General Research Fund HKU704709P of the Hong Kong SAR government.