HETG

Follow-on Science Instrument

Contract NAS8-01129

Monthly Status Report Numbers 017

July 2003

HETG Calibration Status

Prepared in accordance with DR 972MA-002; DPD #972

Prepared for

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama 35812

 

Center for Space Research; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA 02139

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1.0 Distribution List for Monthly Status Report

 

 

MIT-External Electronic:

FD03/Mike Smith, MSFC                   Carl.M.Smith@msfc.nasa.gov

PS41/Steve Morris, MSFC                 Steven.D.Morris@msfc.nasa.gov

SD50/Martin Weisskopf, MSFC            martin.weisskopf@msfc.nasa.gov

 

MIT-External Hardcopy:

                                    None specified.

 

 

            MIT-Internal Electronic:

                                                Elaine Tirrell                egt@mit.edu

                                                Gail Monahan              gmonahan@mit.edu

 

MIT-Internal Hardcopy:

                                                Claude Canizares         Room 3-234 (via Gail Monahan)

                                                Deepto Chakrabarty     Room 37-501 (via Elaine Tirrell)

                                                Kathryn Flanagan        Room NE80-6103 (via Elaine Tirrell)

                                                File                              (via Elaine Tirrell)

 

 

Please send distribution requests and other comments on this document to dd@mit.edu .

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2.0 Schedule of Past and Future Events Relevant to HETG

 

 

Date	Past Events	Comment
July 14-17	Short Course in EXAFS Data Collection and Analysis, Brookhaven National Lab	J. Lee
July 13-26	IAU, Sydney: JD17 “… Atomic Data for X-Ray Astronomy” ; Symp.218 "Young NSs …" ; JD20 “Frontiers of High Res Spectroscopy” S 219 “Stars as Suns”	J. Lee, P. Josh,   (DPH)
July 21-26	10th Marcel Grossmann Meeting, Rio de Janeiro	M. Jimenez-Garate; (N.S. Schulz, H. Marshall)
July 26-30	AGN Physics with the SDSS, Princeton, NJ	S. Gallagher
Aug. 3-8	SPIE meeting, San Diego	H. Marshall: HETG Flight Cal.; K. Flanagan.

 

 

 

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3.0 Instrument Status and Science Support

 

 

3.1 Flight Events and HETG Instrument Status

 

The HETG continues to function with no outstanding issues.

In July there were 7 HETG observation intervals for 5 targets. These included a calibration observation of 3C 273 (obsid 4430), three observations of HETG GTO target Markarian 290 completing the 250 ks total exposure, a well-executed HETG GTO observation of Sco X-1, another Eta Car observation, and H1743-322 GO observation (PI Prof. Lewin at MIT.)

 

3.2 Science Support to CXC, SWG, etc.

 

Continued long term monitoring of the HRMA FWHM by adding the recent observations of 4U 1626 and 3C273; these measurements are consistant with the average value of 38.0 microns, see the FWHM plot in the April 2003 HETG report.

Supported CXC/MIT’s Herman Marshall as a co-author on his SPIE presentation and follow-up paper on HETG flight calibration. Based in part on this work a summary table of the status and plans for HETG calibration is given on the next pages and represents a look towards the second Chandra Calibration Workshop meeting at the end of October.

HETG calibration information is available at: http://space.mit.edu/ASC/calib/hetg_user.html and the recent SPIE paper is at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0309114 .

 

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HETG Calibration Status

 

The following tables provide a D R A F T summary of the various calibration activities related to the HETGS on Chandra and their status. Calibration is carried out by members of the CXC/MIT and the HETG IPI Team – specific initials are given in the “Who/Priority” column. In general the calibration is good to 1/2 a pixel and of order 10% in effective area and the additional activities here are aiming at an ultimate accuracy of order 0.1 pixel and a few percent in effective area.

 

	Geometry/LSF Related
Who/ rriority	Description	Calibration Parameter(s)	Based on flight?	Value OK?
DD	HETGS focus and zeroth-order FWHM	Focus location	Yes	OK, monitor
DD	HEG/MEG angles on ACIS-S array	HEG/MEG Angles	Yes	OK, monitor
DD/1	ACIS-S Geometry: pixel size and chip gaps	ACIS chip geom file	Yes	~<0.5 pixel changes needed
DD/2	Wavelength scale: Relative	HEG/MEG periods	No	HEG p change by -160ppm
DD/3	Wavelength scale: Absolute	Rowland Spacing or HEG/MEG periods	No	Tweaks useful
KI/1	Line spread functions and Resolving Power   (KI = “Bish”)	MARX parameters; LSF files; Randomization on/off	Yes (adjusted MARX DitherBlur)	Improvements: Variable cross-disp width; Wings too low
KI/2	Cross-dispersion profile	MARX parameters based on XRCF	No	OK at a glance, but not well tested

 

 

 

	Effective Area Related
Do soon?	Description	Calibration Parameter(s)	Based on flight?	Value OK?
HLM	HRMA Effective Area	HRMA area files	No	Ir M edge bump in data
HLM/3	HEG/MEG efficencies: Relative	HEG/MEG effic files, ABS(M)=1	No	Needs adjustement
NSS	HEG/MEG High-order efficiencies	HEG/MEG effic files	No	Needs study
HLM/1	ACIS OBF and Contaminant	OBF transmission	Yes	Not fully understood
HLM/2	ACIS QE and QEU: BI/FI differences	ACIS QE, QEU files	Flight data suggests changes	Include cosmic-ray factor; Include BI/FI difference
DPH	ACIS gains and RMFs for order extraction	OSIP files	Yes	Needs improvement
HLM/4	HEG/MEG Absolute effective areas (combine many factors above)	Variety of files including HEG/MEG effic files	No	Compare w/ ASCA, XMM
	Other
tbd	Background spectrum	Background PHA files	---	Need to create
JED, HLM	Pileup correction for dispersed spectra	Algorithms and ISIS s/w	---	Needs to be routine

 

 

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4.0 GTO Science Program

4.1 Observations and Data status

GTO data sets from the now-complete Markarian 290 and Sco X-1 observations are in-house and being analyzed – only a single Cycle 4 GTO observation is outstanding and to be observed on Sept.8 ’03, see table below. There was also analysis progress on GTO observations during July: draft paper on NGC 5506 completed; first draft of paper on MR 2251-178 completed; spectra from 4U 1626-67 prepared; E0102 paper finalized and submitted to ApJ.

 

Cycle 4 HETG GTO Targets

Object Science Theme	AO	Obs ID	Seq. No.	Expos. (ks)	Observer / Analyst	Start Date	Comments & Analysis	Talks and Publications
4U 1626-67 XRB	4	3504	400257	97.1	N. Schulz	6/5/03	Data in-house, spectra good[6/03]. (Cycle 1 obs. also)
Sco X-1 XRB	4	3505	400258	16.1	N. Schulz	7/21/03	CC Data being processed [7/03]. Multi-wavelength obs organized[1/03].
H1426+428 IGM	4	3568	700630	[102.0]	T. Fang	[9/8/03]	Prop. No.: 04700987
Mrk 290 AGN	4	3567 4399 4441 4442	700629	55 85 61 50	J. Lee	6/29/03 7/15/03 7/15/03 7/17/03	Data in-house [6,7/03]. FUSE proposal submitted for coord. Obs[1/03].
TV Crit “Cool” Stars	4	3728	200198	100.2	D. Huenemoerder	3/7/03	Data in-house – looks good[4/03]. Selected in peer review![6/02]
E0102 SNR	4	3828	500307	137.7	K. Flanagan, D.Dewey	12/20/02	Measure counts in lines. S-S analysis of Ne X line; arfs made. Quick look images[1/03]. Data in-house and look good. Parameters OK.[12/02]

 

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4.2 Science theme progress

 

The HETG GTO science efforts span a range of “science themes” given in the list below – we’ll start a second round summarizing the progress/status of these beginning next month.

 

GTO Science Theme	Abbreviation (for App’ix A)	Researchers (HETG in caps)	Date of last [next] reporting Assembler of theme material
“Cool” Stars	Cool Star	dph,nss,psw,bb	September, 2002. Dave Huenemoerder
“Hot” Stars	Hot Star	nss,dph,psw,bi	October, 2002. Norbert Schulz
X-ray Binaries & Accretion Disks	XRB	MJ-G,AJ,nss,hlm, man, jmm, psw	December, 2002. Norbert Schulz, Mike Nowak
Supernova Remnants	SNR	KAF,DD,JMM, AF,jh,gea,tp	May, 2002. [August, 2003] Dan Dewey
Isolated Neutron Stars	iNS	MDS,hlm, nss	January, 2003. Mike Stage, Herman Marshall
Galaxies & Clusters of Galaxies	Gal., Clust.	TJ,mw,jh	August, 2002. Michael Wise, Tesla Jeltema
Active Galactic Nuclei and Jets	AGN, Jet	SG,RG,MJ-G,hlm, man,jl,sm,jg	June, 2002. Herman Marshall
Inter-Stellar Medium	ISM	AJ,nss	February, 2003. Adrienne Juett, Norbert Schulz
Inter-Galactic Medium	IGM	SG,RG,hlm	July, 2002. Taotao Fang

 

4.3 HETG-related Software: Development, Evaluation, and Support

(No update on s/w this reporting period.)

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4.4 Presentations, etc. (July)

 

 

Mario Jimenez-Garate, “The X-Ray Spectra of Accretion Disk Atmospheres in the Kerr Metric”, talk at the 19th Marcel Grossmann Meeting Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2003.)

Norbert S. Schulz, “Highlights from Four Years of Observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory”, talk at the 19th Marcel Grossmann Meeting Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2003.)

Julia C. Lee, "Probing X-ray Emitting Plasma with high resolution X-ray Spectroscopy", talk at IAU XXV, JD 17, Sydney Australia (2003.)

Paul Joss, “New Model Atmospheres for the Spectra of Young Neutron Stars”, talk at IAU XXV Symposium 218 Young Neutron Stars and their Environments, Sydney Australia (2003.)

David P. Huenemoerder, “Stellar Coronal Spectroscopy with the Chandra HETG”, IAU XXV, Symposium 219 Stars as Suns…, Sydney Australia (2003.)

Herman L. Marshall, Daniel Dewey, and Kazunori Ishibashi, “In-Flight Calibration of the Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer”, SPIE Volume 5165 (2003.)

 

 

4.5 Publications (July), see also: http://space.mit.edu/csr_pubs.html

 

None submitted this month.

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5.0 Systems and Engineering Support

 

5.1 Documentation and “Design Knowledge Capture” and 5.3 Anomalies, Insert/retract, etc. Support

5.2 Spares Retest and Test Instrumentation

 

No activities in these areas in July.

 

6.0 Management

 

6.1 Program Office & NASA Support

 

Quiet month of management stability.

 

6.2 MIT-internal management activities

 

Very quiet on the internal-to-MIT management front in July.

 

 

7.0 Open Issues, Problems, etc.

 

There are no open issues or problems regarding the HETG.