April 12 - 13, 2006HEASARC Users Group

Steve Drake

RXTE Archive at HEASARC Status and Plans

Steve Drake

April 12 - 13, 2006HEASARC Users Group

Steve Drake

RXTE: OverviewThe RXTE archive empowers observers to study objects where physics can be tested in the extreme limit: the shortest orbital period millisecond X-ray pulsars, rapidly spinning black holes and more.

Rapid DiscoveriesPeer-reviewed guest observer projects discover new transient outbursts and trigger rapid follow-up observations. Examples: transient pulsars in the SMC, millisecond pulsar XTE J1751-305 and the black hole system GRO J1655-40. Extensive Archive

All RXTE science and ancillary date are available via the HEASARC Browse archive interface. Overview plots of source behavior allow the user to determine, at a glance, overall source evolution and data quality. The user can then download the data of interest.

Community SupportThe RXTE GOF manages the proposal and peer review process, maintains the RXTE including descriptions of the FITS science data files for the ASM, PCA and HEXTE instruments, links to the latest software and instrument calibration flies, a Getting Started guide, and standard step-by-step recipes for spectral and timing analysis. A list of RXTE-related publications and notices is also maintained.

April 12 - 13, 2006HEASARC Users Group

Steve Drake

RXTE: Mission Status, GO Program & Archive

• Currently in 11th year of operations; to be supported by NASA through March 2007 (may be extended by upcoming Senior Review)

• Spacecraft and subsystems all nominal• Cycle 11 GO observations commenced in March

2006• Cycle 11 Stage 2 (Budget) review in May, funding

decisions for US PIs expected in June

April 12 - 13, 2006HEASARC Users Group

Steve Drake

RXTE: GO Program recent highlights

• Cycle 9 (2004) 167 proposals requesting 61.4 Ms • Cycle 10 (2005) 150 proposals requesting 60.3 Ms• Cycle 11 (2006) 128 proposals requesting 61.7 Ms

• Oversubscription factor remains high at about 5/1• While number of proposals has dropped, total time

requested remains about the same, showing that PIs have responded well to encouragement of large “legacy” programs in recent ROSES announcements of opportunity.

April 12 - 13, 2006HEASARC Users Group

Steve Drake

RXTE Science ProductivityRemains High

Conference Proceedings (low numbers in last 1.5 yr due to lag in ADS updates)

Refereed publications (remains fairly constant, and high at a rate of about 3 per week, for many years.

Astronomical notices (Atels, GCN Circulars and IAU Circulars)

RXTE data has been the basis of 3 Rossi Prizes, 1300+ refereed publications and 48 PhD theses!

April 12 - 13, 2006HEASARC Users Group

Steve Drake

RXTE Archive: Milestones

• April 2004: Release of corrected faint background models and mission-long models, which remove over-subtraction at late times in all epochs and several small trends.

• Late April 2006: Adding HEXTE merged light curves to standard products (pending, see example in following slide)

• Late April 2006: Release of updated PCA background models with better accuracy for the time period 2000-present

April 12 - 13, 2006HEASARC Users Group

Steve Drake

RXTE Standard Products

• Routine analysis of all data before delivery to archive– Spectra, response matrices, source and background

light curves for all pointed observations in the archive on an obsid level

• Merged light curves for each target in a proposal:

– PCA Std1 net rate – HEXTE Cluster A net rate– HEXTE Cluster B net rate

April 12 - 13, 2006HEASARC Users Group

Steve Drake

RXTE Archive: Future Plans

Add HEXTE merged light curves at the proposal-target level, to compliment the existing PCA Std1 merged light curves. Source at right is the millisecond pulsar XTE J1751-305.

New HEXTE Standard Products

Status: will be generated automatically for all new observations prior to delivery to archive, and run on older data in the archive, pending final automation checks.

April 12 - 13, 2006HEASARC Users Group

Steve Drake

RXTE Archive: Future Plans

Numerous sources in the RXTE archive have been observed with good coverage throughout the 10+ year mission. Statistics and diagnostics for every obsid have been collected. These can be merged into mission-long light curves, a project that is currently in progress. At left is black hole binary GX 339-4, which was relatively quiescent in the early part of the RXTE mission but has had two major outbursts more recently. The PCA net Std1 rate, hardness ratio and HEXTE A net rate are plotted versus MJD.

New Mission-Long Light Curves