Context. With a mass exceeding several 10^4 solar masses and a rich and dense
population of massive stars, supermassive young star clusters represent the
most massive star-forming environment that is dominated by the feedback from
massive stars and gravitational interactions among stars. Aims. In this paper
we present the "Extended Westerlund 1 and 2 Open Clusters Survey" (EWOCS)
project, which aims to investigate the influence of the starburst environment
on the formation of stars and planets, and on the evolution of both low and
high mass stars. The primary targets of this project are Westerlund 1 and 2,
the closest supermassive star clusters to the Sun. Methods. The project is
based primarily on recent observations conducted with the Chandra and JWST
observatories. Specifically, the Chandra survey of Westerlund 1 consists of 36
new ACIS-I observations, nearly co-pointed, for a total exposure time of 1
Msec. Additionally, we included 8 archival Chandra/ACIS-S observations. This
paper presents the resulting catalog of X-ray sources within and around
Westerlund 1. Sources were detected by combining various existing methods, and
photon extraction and source validation were carried out using the ACIS-Extract
software. Results. The EWOCS X-ray catalog comprises 5963 validated sources out
of the 9420 initially provided to ACIS-Extract, reaching a photon flux
threshold of approximately 2x10^-8 photons/cm^2/s. The X-ray sources exhibit a
highly concentrated spatial distribution, with 1075 sources located within the
central 1 arcminute. We have successfully detected X-ray emissions from 126 out
of the 166 known massive stars of the cluster, and we have collected over 71000
photons from the magnetar CXO J164710.20-455217Comment: The paper has been accepted for publication by Astronomy and
Astrophysic