1. Ten Years of Swift John Nousek,
Penn State University
Neil Gehrels, Scott Barthelmy (GSFC) & Jamie Kennea (PSU)
International Workshop on Astronomical X-ray Optics
Prague, Czech Republic
11 December 2014

2. Talk Overview Ten years of success *** Swift mission operations
New Swift science as ‘Time Domain Observatory’
New Swift opportunities

3. Swift – The World's GRB Factory
GRBs
>900 GRBs with arcsec positions
Primary GRB mission into the future
Non-GRBs
>1000 TOOs per year
AGN, SNe, novae, CVs, LMXBs, stars, comets, ...
First sensitive hard X-ray all sky survey
GI program
> 4 oversubscription, $1.2M, 5Ms time per year
BAT
XRT
UVOT

4. MOC Facility
Located in State College, PA
~ 4 km. from Penn State campus
Flight Operations Team (FOT)
– responsible for observatory Health & Safety
Science Operations Team (SOT)
- responsible for scientific operation of Swift
New facility from 26 Aug 2014
Has continuously operated Swift successfully from L+80 minutes to now!

5. Swift Observatory Status
Swift meets or exceeds all Level 1 requirements !
Observatory Science Up-time: 98.3%
Except for rare spacecraft or instrument down-time and SAA passage, Swift collects data continuously
Ground Station Status: Nominal
Malindi passes since Launch, 98.4% successful
USN 2843 passes since Launch, 95.3% successful
GN (WPS, AGO, SA2, WS1, SI1) 6671 passes since July 15th 2010, 99.1% successful
TDRSS DAS currently providing 99.3% success rate
Observatory Status: Nominal
ACS: executed slews, > 99% within 3’ accuracy
All systems functioning properly, except for TARA 3 degradation
Observatory Lifetime: Above prediction
Orbital life expected to >2026, no observatory or instrument limits known
Flight Operations Team Response: Excellent
On average, there was an FOT after hours response once every four days
Science Operations Team Response: Excellent
SOT has prepared observing schedules every day with only two SOT induced errors
SOT/BA team has responded to every GRB with prompt (typical < 1 hour) data analysis and preparation of GCN circulars, ATELs, etc for > 2000 events
Statistics as of 31 Oct 2014 – M. Hilliard

6. "Looks like
another friendly
Senior Review
panel."

8. Swift Game-Changing Discoveries
2005: Short burst mystery solution. NS-NS mergers
2005: Flares & bright afterglows in GRBs
2008: Supernova shock breakout from Type Ib SN
2008: Naked-eye GRB from reverse shock in jet
2009: Discovery of GRBs at z>8
2010: Galaxy mergers in hosts of absorbed AGN
2011: Tidal disruption flare of star eaten by BH
2012: SFR and metallicity evolution to z>5
2012: Discovery of very young (2500 year old) SNR
2012; Discovery of ultra-long class of GRB
2013: Anti-glitch in magnetar 1E
2013: Evidence for kilonova/macronova in a short GRB
2014: Evidence for two UV color classes in SNe Ia
October 29, 2009
"Extraordinarily violent explosion that ended the life of a distant star."
April 16, 2011
"Unusual celestial event was black hole swallowing a star."
July 19, 2013
"Origin of gold found in rare neutron-star collisions."
Yearly breakthroughs with Swift

9. Swift & Transients BAT Trigger XRT "Trigger" TOOs LMXB Superburst
Gamma Ray Burst
X-Ray Burst
Soft Gamma Repeater
LMXB & HMXB Flare
Sgr A* flare
Tidal Disruption Event
BH Transient & X-ray Nova
Nova
Supernova Shock Breakout
Super Fast X-ray Transient
Stellar Superflare
ULX Transient
Supernova
Microquasar Flare

10. TOOs per year

11. DG CVn Large Stellar Flare
DG CVn April 23, 2014
Large X-ray "super-flare"
Brighter than star luminosity
10,000x largest solar flare
Young star at 18 pc
previous events: EV Lac, II Peg
Power source:
B field reconnection
Drake, Osten, Page, Oats +

12. LMXB Superburst SAX J1712.6-3739 XRT Rate (counts / s)
SAX J Sept-2011
4U Mar-2014
Time Since BAT Trigger (s)
XRT Rate (counts / s)
SAX J
Large thermonuclear burn
Carbon burning of XRB ashes
Factor 1000 longer and less
frequent than XRBs
Discovered by RXTE
BAT fluence trigger
Power source:
Nuclear burning
in't Zand, Strohmayer,

13. Thermonuclear detonation of accumulated accretion on white dwarf
Nova Outbursts
Thermonuclear detonation of accumulated accretion on white dwarf
- >30 novae observed
- keV emission from shocked ejecta
- Super-Soft emission from WD surface
- Extensive observations of RS Oph 2006
(~400 ksec)
- Earth mass ejected at ~4000 km/s into wind of companion Red Giant
1.6 kpc
RS Oph
Power source:
Nuclear burning
Osborne+ '11 13

14. SN 2008D Shock Breakout 9 Jan 2008 Soderberg+ 08
XRT narrow-field monitoring of SN 2007y
Luminous X-ray outburst from SN 2008D
Shock breakout. May occur for all SNe
Power source:
Gravity + E&M

15. Sgr A* Flares Degenaar+ 13 Daily XRT monitoring of GC
6 flares seen from Sgr A*
+ 10 weak candidate flares
Sgr A* is not dormant
LX ~ erg/s
~ 1 billionth Eddington
Degenaar+ 13
Power source:
Gravity

16. Swift Transient - Sw J
Highly erratic g-ray and X-ray light curve, March 28, 2011
Like a GRB, but lasting 2 days instead of 20 second
Tidal disruption event beamed at us
E ~ 1051 ergs MBH = 106 – 107 Msolar
Swift Light Curve
2 days
t-4/3
HST Image
Center of galaxy at z=0.35
Bloom+, Burrows+, Levan

17. Collapsar model well supported
Short vs Long GRBs
Short GRB
Cnts/s
Long GRB
Cnts/s
XRT
Chandra
GRB Swift
elliptical host
GRB SAX
SF dwarf host
GRB
In SF
galaxies
Accompanied by SNe
Collapsar model well supported
In non-SF
and SF galaxies
No SNe detected
Possible merger model BH

18. Short GRB Summary - extragalactic - occur in distant galaxies
Similar to LGRBs:
- extragalactic
- occur in distant galaxies
- collimated jet outflows
- produced by gravitational
collapse, probably to BHs
Dissimilar to LGRBs
- not accompanied by SN
(but maybe kilonova)
- not concentrated in SR regions
- lower redshift
- weaker afterglows

19. Long GRBs Seen to High z XRT Lightcurve HST image
183 Crab
z Look-Back GRB Optical
Time (Gyr) Brightness
B K = 19
K = 20
~ A
A H ~ 19
K = 19
J = 18 C
I = 16
K = 18
R = 21
HST image

20. Swift Science Supernova TOO program Magnetars BAT survey
AGN monitoring – NGC 5548
Blazar campaigns
Comets / asteroids
ULXs
UVOT galaxy surveys
BH / NS outbursts
Joint observations
(NuSTAR, Fermi, MAXI, INTEGRAL, iPTF, Kepler, ACTs, n experiments, LIGO/Virgo)

21. New Science Themes Coordinate observations with aLIGO/Virgo
Towards a “Smoking Gun” Short Burst Progenitor:
Coordinate observations with aLIGO/Virgo
Confirm r-process “kilonovae”
Probing the Epoch of Reionization:
Use new NIR spectrometers to study z>7 GRBs
Supernovae and Cosmology:
Construct the first large sample of UV light
curves for SNe Ia
Use Swift data to improve SNe Ia standardization
Serendipitous Time-Domain Discoveries:
Increase the likelihood of unanticipated discoveries
through new mission initiatives and partnerships
with wide-field optical and radio transient surveys