268 research outputs found
The measurement errors in the Swift-UVOT and XMM-OM
The probability of photon measurement in some photon counting
instrumentation, such as the Optical Monitor on the XMM-Newton satellite, and
the UVOT on the Swift satellite, does not follow a Poisson distribution due to
the detector characteristics, but a Binomial distribution. For a single-pixel
approximation, an expression was derived for the incident countrate as a
function of the measured count rate by Fordham, Moorhead and Galbraith (2000).
We show that the measured countrate error is binomial, and extend their
formalism to derive the error in the incident count rate. The error on the
incident count rate at large count rates is larger than the Poisson-error of
the incident count rate.Comment: 4 pages, 2 postscript figures, submitted to MNRA
Swift UVOT Grism Observations of Nearby Type Ia Supernovae - I. Observations and Data Reduction
Ultraviolet (UV) observations of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are useful tools
for understanding progenitor systems and explosion physics. In particular, UV
spectra of SNe Ia, which probe the outermost layers, are strongly affected by
the progenitor metallicity. In this work, we present 120 Neil Gehrels Swift
Observatory UV spectra of 39 nearby SNe Ia. This sample is the largest UV
(lambda < 2900 A) spectroscopic sample of SNe Ia to date, doubling the number
of UV spectra and tripling the number of SNe with UV spectra. The sample spans
nearly the full range of SN Ia light-curve shapes (delta m(B) ~ 0.6-1.8 mag).
The fast turnaround of Swift allows us to obtain UV spectra at very early
times, with 13 out of 39 SNe having their first spectra observed >~ 1 week
before peak brightness and the earliest epoch being 16.5 days before peak
brightness. The slitless design of the Swift UV grism complicates the data
reduction, which requires separating SN light from underlying host-galaxy light
and occasional overlapping stellar light. We present a new data-reduction
procedure to mitigate these issues, producing spectra that are significantly
improved over those of standard methods. For a subset of the spectra we have
nearly simultaneous Hubble Space Telescope UV spectra; the Swift spectra are
consistent with these comparison data.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
An Updated Ultraviolet Calibration for the Swift/UVOT
We present an updated calibration of the Swift/UVOT broadband ultraviolet
(uvw1, uvm2, and uvw2) filters. The new calibration accounts for the ~1% per
year decline in the UVOT sensitivity observed in all filters, and makes use of
additional calibration sources with a wider range of colours and with HST
spectrophotometry. In this paper we present the new effective area curves and
instrumental photometric zeropoints and compare with the previous calibration.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Presented at GRB 2010 symposium,
Annapolis, November 2010 to be published in American Institute of Physics
Conference Serie
The ambiguous transient ASASSN-17hx. A possible nova-impostor
Some transients, although classified as novae based on their maximum and early decline optical spectra, cast doubts on their true nature and whether nova impostors might exist. We monitored a candidate nova which displayed a distinctly unusual light curve at maximum and early decline through optical spectroscopy (3000-10000 \AA, 500<R<100000) complemented with Swift UV and AAVSO optical photometry. We use the spectral line series to characterize the ejecta dynamics, structure, and mass. We found that the ejecta are in free ballistic expansion and structured as typical of classical novae. However, their derived mass is at least an order of magnitude larger than the typical ejecta masses obtained for classical novae. Specifically, we found M910 M independent of the distance for a filling factor =1. By constraining the distance we derived in the range 0.08-0.10, giving a mass 710 M910 M. The nebular spectrum, characterized by unusually strong coronal emission lines, confines the ionizing source energy to the range 20-250 eV, possibly peaking in the range 75-100 or 75-150 eV. We link this source to other slow novae which showed similar behavior and suggest that they might form a distinct physical sub-group. They may result from a classical nova explosion occurring on a very low mass white dwarf or be impostors for an entirely different type of transient
Multi-wavelength spectroscopic study of shock-driven phenomena in explosive outbursts in symbiotic-like recurrent novae with an emphasis on RS Ophiuchi
Aims. Our goal is to detail the development of RS Ophiuchi and the other Galactic symbiotic-like recurrent novae throughout their outburst and quiescence, with a particular emphasis on the propagation of the shock wave during the outburst of the binaries. Methods. The spectral analysis has been performed using archival data according to the features of the individual datasets. Swift grism spectra were reduced and extracted using a combination of the pre-existing UVOTPY Python routine and newly written pipelines in Matlab. Other datasets were directly available in reduced form, already corrected for instrumental or background contamination, and calibrated in wavelength and flux or intensity. The work on these was done through pipelines suited for reading the data and elaborating them to extract quantities of interest for the analysis. Results. We find striking similarities in different outbursts of the same object and for different novae. For example, RS Oph 2021 was almost identical to the 2006 outburst, despite having occurred at a different orbital phase with the observations made from a different line of sight through the red giant wind. Despite the intrinsically different properties of the binaries, striking similarities are found for different systems of the same class, for instance, the trend of the electron density over time during outburst appears to follow a general temporal development
A panchromatic analysis of starburst galaxy M82: Probing the dust properties
(Abridged) We combine NUV, optical and IR imaging of the nearby starburst
galaxy M82 to explore the properties of the dust both in the interstellar
medium of the galaxy and the dust entrained in the superwind. The three NUV
filters of Swift/UVOT enable us to probe in detail the properties of the
extinction curve in the region around the 2175A bump. The NUV colour-colour
diagram strongly rules out a Calzetti-type law, which can either reflect
intrinsic changes in the dust properties or in the star formation history
compared to starbursts well represented by such an attenuation law. We
emphasize that it is mainly in the NUV region where a standard Milky-Way-type
law is preferred over a Calzetti law. The age and dust distribution of the
stellar populations is consistent with the scenario of an encounter with M81 in
the recent 400 Myr. The radial gradients of the NUV and optical colours in the
superwind region support the hypothesis that the emission in the wind cone is
driven by scattering from dust grains entrained in the ejecta. The observed
wavelength dependence reveals either a grain size distribution , where is the size of the grain, or a flatter distribution with a
maximum size cutoff, suggesting that only small grains are entrained in the
supernovae-driven wind.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, MNRAS, in pres
Increasing activity in T CrB suggests nova eruption is impending
Estimates of the accretion rate in symbiotic recurrent novae (RNe) often fall
short of theoretical expectations by orders of magnitude. This apparent
discrepancy can be resolved if the accumulation of mass by the white dwarf (WD)
is highly sporadic, and most observations are performed during low states. Here
we use a reanalysis of archival data from the Digital Access to a Sky Century
@Harvard (DASCH) survey to argue that the most recent nova eruption in
symbiotic RN T CrB, in 1946, occurred during -- and was therefore triggered by
-- a transient accretion high state. Based on similarities in the optical light
curve around 1946 and the time of the prior eruption, in 1866, we suggest that
the WD in T CrB accumulates most of the fuel needed to ignite the thermonuclear
runaways (TNRs) during accretion high states. A natural origin for such states
is dwarf-nova like accretion-disk instabilities, which are expected in the
presumably large disks in symbiotic binaries. The timing of the TNRs in
symbiotic RNe could thus be set by the stability properties of their accretion
disks. T CrB is in the midst of an accretion high state like the ones we posit
led to the past two nova eruptions. Combined with the approach of the time at
which a TNR would be expected based on the 80-year interval between the prior
two novae (3), the current accretion high state increases the
likelihood of a TNR occurring in T CrB in the next few years.Comment: Accepted in ApJ
On the Polarized Absorption Lines in Gamma-Ray Burst Optical Afterglows
Spectropolarimetric measurements of gamma-ray burst (GRB) optical afterglows contain polarization information for both continuum and absorption lines. Based on the Zeeman effect, an absorption line in a strong magnetic field is polarized and split into a triplet. In this paper, we solve the polarization radiative transfer equations of the absorption lines, and obtain the degree of linear polarization of the absorption lines as a function of the optical depth. In order to effectively measure the degree of linear polarization for the absorption lines, a magnetic field strength of at least 103 G is required. The metal elements that produce the polarized absorption lines should be sufficiently abundant and have large oscillation strengths or Einstein absorption coefficients. We encourage both polarization measurements and high-dispersion observations of the absorption lines in order to detect the triplet structure in early GRB optical afterglows
The use and calibration of read-out streaks to increase the dynamic range of the Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope
The dynamic range of photon counting micro-channel-plate (MCP) intensified
charged-coupled device (CCD) instruments such as the Swift Ultraviolet/Optical
Telescope (UVOT) and the XMM-Newton Optical Monitor (XMM-OM) is limited at the
bright end by coincidence loss, the superposition of multiple photons in the
individual frames recorded by the CCD. Photons which arrive during the brief
period in which the image frame is transferred for read out of the CCD are
displaced in the transfer direction in the recorded images. For sufficiently
bright sources, these displaced counts form read-out streaks. Using UVOT
observations of Tycho-2 stars, we investigate the use of these read-out streaks
to obtain photometry for sources which are too bright (and hence have too much
coincidence loss) for normal aperture photometry to be reliable. For
read-out-streak photometry, the bright-source limiting factor is coincidence
loss within the MCPs rather than the CCD. We find that photometric measurements
can be obtained for stars up to 2.4 magnitudes brighter than the usual
full-frame coincidence-loss limit by using the read-out streaks. The resulting
bright-limit Vega magnitudes in the UVOT passbands are UVW2=8.80, UVM2=8.27,
UVW1=8.86, u=9.76, b=10.53, v=9.31 and White=11.71; these limits are
independent of the windowing mode of the camera. We find that a photometric
precision of 0.1 mag can be achieved through read-out streak measurements. A
suitable method for the measurement of read-out streaks is described and all
necessary calibration factors are given.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS. Code available from the
calibration link at http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/www_astro/uvo
Distant foreground and the Planck-derived Hubble constant
It is possible to reduce the discrepancy between the local measurement of the
cosmological parameter and the value derived from the
measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) by considering
contamination of the CMB by emission from some medium around distant
extragalactic sources, such as extremely cold coarse-grain dust. Though being
distant, such a medium would still be in the foreground with respect to the
CMB, and, as any other foreground, it would alter the CMB power spectrum. This
could contribute to the dispersion of CMB temperature fluctuations. By
generating a few random samples of CMB with different dispersions, we have
checked that the increased dispersion leads to a smaller estimated value of
, the rest of the cosmological model parameters remaining fixed. This
might explain the reduced value of the -derived parameter with
respect to the local measurements. The signature of the distant foreground in
the CMB traced by SNe was previously reported by the authors of this paper --
we found a correlation between the SN redshifts, , and CMB
temperature fluctuations at the SNe locations, . Here we have used
the slopes of the regression lines corresponding to
different {\it Planck} wave bands in order to estimate the possible temperature
of the distant extragalactic medium, which turns out to be very low, about
5\,K. The most likely ingredient of this medium is coarse-grain () dust,
which is known to be almost undetectable, except for the effect of dimming
remote extragalactic sources.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
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