Context :

Aims : We report on a deep X-ray survey of the young ( \sim 140 Myr ) , rich open cluster NGC 2516 obtained with the EPIC camera on board the XMM-Newton satellite .

Methods : By combining data from six observations , a high sensitivity , greater than a factor 5 with respect to recent Chandra observations , has been achieved .
Kaplan-Meier estimators of the cumulative X-ray luminosity distribution are built , statistically corrected for non members contaminants and compared to those of the nearly coeval Pleiades .
The EPIC spectra of the X-ray brightest stars are fitted using optically thin model plasma with one or two thermal components .

Results : We detected 431 X-ray sources and 234 of them have as optical counterparts cluster stars spanning the entire NGC 2516 Main Sequence .
On the basis of X-ray emission and optical photometry , we indicate 20 new candidate members of the cluster ; at the same time we find 49 X-ray sources without known optical or infrared counterpart .
The X-ray luminosities of cluster stars span the range \log \mathrm { L } _ { \mathrm { X } } ( erg s ^ { -1 } ) = 28.4 – 30.8 .
The representative temperatures span the 0.3 – 0.6 keV ( 3.5 – 8 MK ) range for the cool component and 1.0 - 2.0 keV ( 12 – 23 MK ) for the hot one ; similar values are found in other young open clusters like the Pleiades , IC 2391 , and Blanco 1 .
While no significant differences are found in X-ray spectra , NGC 2516 solar type stars are definitely less luminous in X-rays than the nearly coeval Pleiades .
The comparison with a previous ROSAT survey evidence the lack of variability amplitudes larger than a factor 2 in solar type stars in a \sim 11 yr time scale of the cluster and thus activity cycles like in the Sun are probably absent or different by period and amplitude in young stars .

Conclusions :