XMM-Newton-NEWS

Contents:

• News from the project scientist
• The XMM-Newton Science Archive (XSA) is open
• XMM-Newton AO-2 status
• Proprietary right expiry date in the Observation Status table
• SAS 5.3.0 released
• High Accuracy Timing Analysis with SAS 5.3
• XMM-Newton Observer Feedback
• XMM-Newton Quarterly Status Report
• XMM-Newton ToO page
• TOO data of March Gamma-Ray bursts available on WWW
• SAS Workshop
• Users Group on the WWW
• The future: AO-3

News from the project scientist

XMM-Newton Science Archive is open

XMM-Newton AO-2 status

1. Stars, White Dwarfs and Solar System
2. White Dwarf Binaries, Neutron Star Binaries, Cataclysmic Variables and Black Holes
3. Supernovae, Supernova Remnants, Diffuse (galactic) Emission and Isolated Neutron Stars
4. X-ray Background and Surveys with the footnote: {Surveys of certain objects classes, like cluster of galaxies or Active Galactic Nuclei, are not considered as surveys to be proposed in this panel. On the contrary, surveys of the Galactic plane belong to this class.}
5. Galaxies and Groups of Galaxies
6. Active Galactic Nuclei, Quasars and BL-Lac Objects
7. Clusters of Galaxies and Superclusters

          Nr. of   Nr. of Nr. of      Nr. of 
category proposals panels proposals   members 
                          per panel   per panel
-----------------------------------------------
A:        104       2      52         3
B:        169       3      56         3
C:        109       2      54         3
D:         43       1      43         5
E:        115       2      58         3
F:        216       3      72         3
G:        113       2      57         3

Proprietary right expiry date in the Observation Status table

SAS 5.3.0 released

General

• CHANGES TO THE CCF ORDERING ALGORITHM were introduced in order to simplify the maintenance of the calibration database. You can read the details in the documentation of the task cifbuild, and at the URL
  http://xmm.esac.esa.int/sas/current/doc/cifbuild/
  These changes are not recognized by versions of cifbuild earlier than 4.0 (SAS version from 5.0.0 to 5.2.x inclusive). If you usually create your CIFs by running the task cifbuild on a local copy of the CCF database, then you are advised to upgrade to SAS 5.3.0.
  If you wish to stay with an earlier SAS version, but still be able to use some of the recent calibration files, you should create the CIF via the scripts available at the URL mentioned above.
• CHANGES TO THE ODF SUMMARY FILE SUM.ASC distributed with the ODF were introduced to make additional information available to the SAS and the XMM-Newton Science Archive. These changes affect all observations made starting from revolution 415, and all ODFs reprocessed after 19-March-2002 cannot be processed with SAS versions earlier than 5.3.0 without making a small change to the SUM.ASC file, as described at:
  http://xmm.esac.esa.int/sas/documentation/watchout/odfingest.shtml
• A new task, odfbrowser, has been introduced. This allows the user to view the contents of an ODF by instrument and exposure. Some of the parameters describing the exposure (filter, start and stop time) are also displayed. For the X-ray instruments the user can select the exposures to process, and launch one of the proc-tasks (emproc, epproc, or rgsproc) to create the event lists.
• xmmselect can now make use of canned selection expressions, via the so-called preferences mechanism. In order to activate the preferences the first time run the command sasprefgen. The usage of this mechanism will be expanded in response to requests from the users.
• A coding error was corrected in the task barycen. The error introduced an apparent shift of the order of one part in 10**6 in the period determination of a periodic source. With SAS 5.3.0 it is possible to recover the period of the Crab pulsar to one part in 10**9.
• The dataset browser is now much faster, solving an outstanding problem with the previous SAS releases.

EPIC

• The MOS CTI correction has been improved to take into account the changes occurred since launch.
• A new task, evigweight, assigns a vignetting correction to each individual event. This allows one to extract vignetting-corrected images and spectra directly.
• A new task, epatplot, is available to identify pile up.
• The pn background rejection and CTI correction have been significantly improved.
• The tasks rmfgen and arfgen now reproduce the canned matrices to within 1%. Also, the full range of event patterns is supported. Further, rmfgen supports the major observing modes.

OM

• It is now possible to create whole-field image mosaics.
• Improved photometric accuracy in the optical bands (~0.05 mags (systematic) or better)

RGS

• Hot pixels are better removed.
• The task rgsproc now produces response matrices and fluxed spectra automatically.
• Switched from RATE format to COUNT format, but using a new format (OGIP Memo OGIP/92-007), which requires XSPEC users to upgrade to version 11.1.

High Accuracy Timing Analysis with SAS 5.3

The upcoming release of SAS 5.3 comprises for the first time all necessary components to support such timing analysis. Tests on data from the Crab pulsar taken during XMM-Newton's performance verification campaign in early 2000 indicate that the relative deviation in the observed pulse period w.r.t. the most accurate radio data available is now considerably better than 10**-8, with an absolute timing accuracy of < 500 microseconds. This is about two orders of magnitude better than has been possible with SAS releases earlier than 5.3.
In the earlier SAS releases the true period of a periodic source could be only determined To one part in 10**-6 due to a coding error in the task "barycen".
For the Crab pulsar the new results now conform with estimates of the theoretically attainable accuracy with XMM-Newton and the expected statistical errors.
Further investigations for periods of other objects are currently underway.
Because of another improvement in converting the onboard time to the event time, the user should make sure that the data are reprocessed completely with the new SAS 5.3 and not only with the new "barycen" task.

XMM-Newton Observer Feedback

XMM-Newton Quarterly Status Report

The page will be updated approximately every three months.

XMM-Newton TOO Web Page

Here you find links and information on the
* Policies and Procedures
* TOO Alert
* List of performed TOO and discretionary time observations
* Data rights of performed TOO and discretionary time observations
The update of the page will be triggered by performed TOO and discretionary time observations.

TOO data of March Gamma-Ray bursts available on WWW

SAS Workshop

Users Group on the WWW

The future: AO-3