[vsnet-grb 81777] GCN/IPN Timestamp and Annulus Notice type now available
Bacodine
vxw at capella.gsfc.nasa.gov
Wed Sep 3 07:41:21 JST 2008
TO: All GCN Notice recipients
RE: IPN_RAW Notice type is available
DT: 02 Sep 08
INTRODUCTION:
A new notice type has been added to the GCN system. It is called the IPN_RAW type.
This type comes in two subtypes: (a) a Timestamp-only version which contains
just a timestamp of when one of the various IPN-contributing missions
triggers on an event or discovers a significant rate increase in their countrate data, and
(b) an Annulus version which contains the results of a 2-mission detection
yielding an annulus on the sky. (Note that the IPN_POS Notice already exists
to handle the 3-or-more-mission 'single' and 'double' error boxes scenarios.)
Further information can be found at http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/ipn.html .
CONTENT and QUALITY:
These Notices contain the detection by one or two of the regular mission/instruments
in the IPN constellation of spacecraft. There are quality flags indicating
that each specific detection is "definitely", "probably", "possibly" and
"definitely not" a GRB. Initially, only those detections with the "definitely" flag set
will be distributed. Later, as experience determines, this threshold may be
lowered to the "probably" category. (A total of about 200 gamma-ray bursts per year
are detected by the IPN, but not all of them can be confirmed rapidly.)
Note that it is possible that some SGR outbursts may be confused with cosmic GRBs
at this stage. The expected occurance rate will be ~1/week for the
"definitely" Timestamp-only Notices and ~1/month of the Annulus Notices.
SEQUENCE:
Initially, a single spacecraft makes a detection of countrate increase
and determines it to be a burst (usually through lightcurve shape and
spectral aspects). The instrument team sends a message to GCN containing
the information to GCN, which then sends it out as Timestamp-only Notice.
If, later, a second spacecraft (with a sufficiently different earth-centric
baseline) makes a detection of the same burst, then a true IPN annulus
is calculated. This annulus information is then sent to GCN, which then
sends out an Annulus Notice. Currently, the combining of the two detections
into an annulus is done manually in the IPN Team by various analyses. Eventually,
this combining will be done automatically within GCN.
ENVISIONED USE FOR THIS NOTICE TYPE:
Since this type contains only a timestamp of a GRB (and sometimes an annulus
on the sky), it is envisioned that this Notice type is suitable for those
sites that want to time-correlate any detections in their instruments with
those mission-instruments in the IPN network. (This might include not only
wide-angle optical sky-survey cameras, but also neutrino, gravitational radiation,
TeV detectors, although, of course, anybody is free to receive this Notice type.)
Not all timestamp notices will be followed up with localization information;
please contact Kevin Hurley and/or Valentin Pal'shin (khurley AT ssl.berkeley.edu,
val AT mail.ioffe.ru) if you need further information on an event.
FILTERING:
Sites that have this type enabled will get both subtypes (timestamp-only and
annulus) -- there is no subtype filtering. The ratio of timestamp to annulus
is greater than 10.
ACTION ITEM:
If you want to receive this IPN_RAW Notice type, then reply to this email
(that has your _sitename_ and config) to me (scott at milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov),
and I will enable it.
EXAMPLES OF THE OUTGOING FULL-FORMAT EMAIL NOTICES:
(Items in angle brackets (<>) are not part of the email format;
they are just explanations of that line in the email.)
(These IPN_RAW notices are also available in all the other email-based
formats and in the socket packet format (see the sock_pkt_def_doc.html).)
Example of a Time-only Notice:
TITLE: GCN/IPN ANNULUS NOTICE
NOTICE_DATE: Sun 24 Aug 08 16:48:40 UT
NOTICE_TYPE: IPN Time_only <subtype indicator>
TRIGGER_NUM: 0 <0 if unknown or not available>
GRB_DATE: 14701 TJD; 236 DOY; 08/08/23
GRB_TIME: 31339.25 SOD {08:42:19.25} UT <time of center of window>
IPN_CENTER_RA: 0.0000d {+00h 00m 00s} (J2000)
IPN_CENTER_DEC: +0.0000d {+00d 00' 00"} (J2000)
IPN_RADIUS: +0.0000d
IPN_WIDTH: +0.0000d = 0.00 [arcmin] = 0.00 [arcsec]
IPN_WINDOW: 0.02 [sec]
EVENT_DUR: 32.00 [sec] <0 if unknown or not available>
SUN_POSTN: 153.88d {+10h 15m 31s} +10.81d {+10d 48' 19"}
SUN_DIST: 151.76 [deg]
MOON_POSTN: 68.92d {+04h 35m 41s} +26.94d {+26d 56' 12"}
MOON_DIST: 71.18 [deg]
COMMENTS: IPN annulus notice.
COMMENTS: This notice contains only a timestamp -- the RA,Dec,Radius,Width fields are undefined.
COMMENTS: This is definitely a GRB.
COMMENTS: The Suzaku-WAM instrument contributed to this notice.
Example of a Annulus Notice:
TITLE: GCN/IPN ANNULUS NOTICE
NOTICE_DATE: Wed 27 Aug 08 21:23:50 UT
NOTICE_TYPE: IPN Annulus <subtype indicator>
TRIGGER_ID: 0 <0 if unknown or not available>
GRB_DATE: 14703 TJD; 238 DOY; 08/08/25
GRB_TIME: 51229.51 SOD {14:13:49.51} UT
IPN_CENTER_RA: 317.0950d {+21h 08m 23s} (J2000)
IPN_CENTER_DEC: -11.9559d {-11d 57' 20"} (J2000)
IPN_RADIUS: +81.6200d
IPN_WIDTH: +0.8120d = 0.01 [arcmin] = 0.00 [arcsec]
IPN_WINDOW: n/a [sec] <window is not applicable for annulus>
EVENT_DUR: 25.00 [sec] <0 if unknown or not available>
SUN_POSTN: 156.80d {+10h 27m 11s} +9.69d {+09d 41' 32"}
SUN_DIST: 160.64 [deg]
MOON_POSTN: 119.12d {+07h 56m 29s} +22.66d {+22d 39' 38"}
MOON_DIST: 159.69 [deg]
COMMENTS: IPN annulus notice.
COMMENTS: This is definitely a GRB.
COMMENTS: The KONUS-Wind instrument contributed to this notice.
COMMENTS: The Swift-BAT instrument contributed to this notice.
RECENT PAST AND NEAR FUTURE:
1) I remind people that the AGILE Notices types were added to GCN two months ago.
See announcement: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/admin/superagile_announce.txt
and GCN/AGILE web page: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/agile.html
2) Also the SIMBAD_NED search Notice was added a month ago.
See announcement: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/admin/simbad_ned_announce.txt
and the web page: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/simbad_ned.html
3) If you have not already done so, you can take this opportunity
to request these to be added to your site's configuration as well.
4) The Fermi mission is still in its early-orbit checkout and calibration phase.
The GBM and LAT notices are NOT yet available for public distribution.
When the GBM and LAT instrument teams each complete their calibrations,
there will be announcements of availability for each.
/////////////////////////// Your Current Configuration /////////////////////////////////////
Site_name: VSNET
Lon,Lat= 135.75 35.00
Distribution_method: EMAIL Attachment_format: NONE
Address: vsnet-grb at ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Filter: ALL
Error_limit= 360.100 [deg, diameter]
Delta_T_limit= 999.900 [hr]
Swift_Trigger_ID_filter: Disabled
Sources & Notice Types/Subtypes:
RXTE-PCA_Alert_wont: Enabled
RXTE-PCA_Alert_will: Enabled
RXTE-PCA_nosaw: Enabled
RXTE-PCA_saw: Enabled
RXTE-ASM: Enabled
IPN_RAW: Disabled
IPN_POS: Enabled
RXTE-ASM_TRANS: Enabled
HETE_TEST: Disabled
TYPE2_TEST: Disabled
INTEGRAL_Test_notices: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_TEST: Disabled
AGILE_GRB_TEST: Disabled
GLAST_GBM_TEST: Disabled
GLAST_LAT_TEST: Disabled
INTEGRAL_POINTDIR: Disabled
INTEGRAL_SPIACS: Enabled
INTEGRAL_WAKEUP: Enabled
INTEGRAL_REFINED: Enabled
INTEGRAL_OFFLINE: Enabled
GRB_CNTRPART: Disabled
MILAGRO_POS: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_ALERT: enabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_POS: enabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_POS_NACK: enabled
SWIFT_BAT_SUBTHRESH_POS: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_LIGHTCURVE: enabled
SWIFT_FOM_2OBS: enabled
SWIFT_SC_2SLEW: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_POS: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_POS_NACK: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_SPECTRUM: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_IMAGE: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_LIGHTCURVE: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_IMAGE: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_SRCLIST: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_POS: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_POS_NACK: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_LC_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_SPECTRUM_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_IMAGE_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_IMAGE_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_SRCLIST_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_FULL_DATA_INIT: enabled
SWIFT_FULL_DATA_UPDATE: enabled
SWIFT_POINTDIR: enabled
SWIFT_BAT_TRANS: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_SLEW_POS: Disabled
AGILE_GRB_WAKEUP_POS: Disabled
AGILE_GRB_GROUND_POS: Disabled
AGILE_GRB_REFINED_POS: Disabled
AGILE_POINTDIR: Disabled
SIMBAD-NED: Disabled
General Adminastrivia Comments/Suggestions:
1) When requesting changes to your configuration,
it helps if you refer to your site_name.
2) If your site has more than one recipient (ie a list),
please review the list to see if anybody should be deleted;
(the volume of bounce-back-to-gcn emails gets large after a while).
3) If a new contact_person has taken over for the project, please inform me.
4) If your site is no longer active, please inform me.
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