173 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
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
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
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
Swift detection of the super-swift switch-on of the super-soft phase in nova V745 Sco (2014)
V745 Sco is a recurrent nova, with the most recent eruption occurring in
February 2014. V745 Sco was first observed by Swift a mere 3.7 hr after the
announcement of the optical discovery, with the super-soft X-ray emission being
detected around four days later and lasting for only ~two days, making it both
the fastest follow-up of a nova by Swift and the earliest switch-on of
super-soft emission yet detected. Such an early switch-on time suggests a
combination of a very high velocity outflow and low ejected mass and, together
with the high effective temperature reached by the super-soft emission, a high
mass white dwarf (>1.3 M_sun). The X-ray spectral evolution was followed from
an early epoch where shocked emission was evident, through the entirety of the
super-soft phase, showing evolving column density, emission lines, absorption
edges and thermal continuum temperature. UV grism data were also obtained
throughout the super-soft interval, with the spectra showing mainly emission
lines from lower ionization transitions and the Balmer continuum in emission.
V745 Sco is compared with both V2491 Cyg (another nova with a very short
super-soft phase) and M31N 2008-12a (the most rapidly recurring nova yet
discovered). The longer recurrence time compared to M31N 2008-12a could be due
to a lower mass accretion rate, although inclination of the system may also
play a part. Nova V745 Sco (2014) revealed the fastest evolving super-soft
source phase yet discovered, providing a detailed and informative dataset for
study.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures (4 in colour), accepted for publication in MNRA
The Swift-UVOT ultraviolet and visible grism calibration
We present the calibration of the Swift UVOT grisms, of which there are two,
providing low-resolution field spectroscopy in the ultraviolet and optical
bands respectively. The UV grism covers the range 1700-5000 Angstrom with a
spectral resolution of 75 at 2600 Angstrom for source magnitudes of u=10-16
mag, while the visible grism covers the range 2850-6600 Angstrom with a
spectral resolution of 100 at 4000 Angstrom for source magnitudes of b=12-17
mag. This calibration extends over all detector positions, for all modes used
during operations. The wavelength accuracy (1-sigma) is 9 Angstrom in the UV
grism clocked mode, 17 Angstrom in the UV grism nominal mode and 22 Angstrom in
the visible grism. The range below 2740 Angstrom in the UV grism and 5200
Angstrom in the visible grism never suffers from overlapping by higher spectral
orders. The flux calibration of the grisms includes a correction we developed
for coincidence loss in the detector. The error in the coincidence loss
correction is less than 20%. The position of the spectrum on the detector only
affects the effective area (sensitivity) by a few percent in the nominal modes,
but varies substantially in the clocked modes. The error in the effective area
is from 9% in the UV grism clocked mode to 15% in the visible grism clocked
mode .Comment: 27 pages, 31 figures; MNRAS accepted 23 February 201
Paper II: Calibration of the Swift ultraviolet/optical telescope
The Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) is one of three instruments onboard
the Swift observatory. The photometric calibration has been published, and this
paper follows up with details on other aspects of the calibration including a
measurement of the point spread function with an assessment of the orbital
variation and the effect on photometry. A correction for large scale variations
in sensitivity over the field of view is described, as well as a model of the
coincidence loss which is used to assess the coincidence correction in extended
regions. We have provided a correction for the detector distortion and measured
the resulting internal astrometric accuracy of the UVOT, also giving the
absolute accuracy with respect to the International Celestial Reference System.
We have compiled statistics on the background count rates, and discuss the
sources of the background, including instrumental scattered light. In each case
we describe any impact on UVOT measurements, whether any correction is applied
in the standard pipeline data processing or whether further steps are
recommended.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 15 pages, 21 figures, 4 table
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