1. XMM-Newton 1 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Background Working Group Meeting Madrid, March 22 nd 2010 SOC Activities Ignacio de la Calle

2. XMM-Newton 2 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX The EPIC Background Working Group Motivation The EPIC Background working group was founded in 2005 to provide users with clear information on the EPIC Background and (SAS)-Tools to treat the EPIC Background correctly for various scenarios. Members (is this list updated ?) LUX: Andy Read (chair), Jenny Carter GSFC GOF: Steve Snowden, Kip Kuntz MPE: Wolfgang Pietsch, Michael Freyberg INAF: Silvano Molendi, Alberto Leccardi ESA: Ignacio de la Calle (co-ord.), Matthias Ehle, Carlos Gabriel CEA: Hubert Chen IAAT: Christoph Tenzer Guests: Uli Briel, Steve Sembay, …

3. XMM-Newton 3 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Outcome of the Latest Users Group Meeting The latest Users Group (UG) meeting took place at ESAC on the 6 th -7 th of May 2009, were I. de la Calle gave a status report of the BGWG activities on behalf of the group (minutes: http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_user_support/usersgroup/index.shtml) The chairman of the group (M. Arnaud) acknowledge the work done by the group so far and encourages the group to carry on with their activities. Two very general worries were raised during the meeting: 1.Support from the BGWG in the medium term future 1.Integration of ESAS into SAS 2.Automatic generation of Blank Sky Files 2. The need to compare the different background analysis methods 1.FWC data + background modeling (ESAS) vs. Blank Sky Files 2.Other methods ? 3.How to treat the background in Small Window Observations Next UG Meeting: 12 th -13 th of May 2010 at ESAC

4. XMM-Newton 4 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Outcome of the Latest Users Group Meeting

5. XMM-Newton 5 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX I. Blank Sky Background Event Files II. Filter Wheel Close Data (FWC) III. XMM-Newton Extended Source Analysis Software (XMM-ESAS) IV. Background treatment Scripts Repository of FWC Data provided by K. Kuntz (EPIC-MOS) and M. Freyberg (EPIC-pn) Developed by S.Sembay at the NASA/GSFC XMM-Newton Guest Observer Facility (GOF) in cooperation with the XMM-Newton SOC and the Background Working Group.XMM-Newton Guest Observer Facility (GOF) Collection of analysis Scripts d eveloped by several teams as part of PhD Theses, Trainee Projects, Research work...... Developed and maintain at LUX by the EPIC Blank Sky team based on the work of J. Carter and A. Read (A&A 464, p1155, 2007)LUXA&A 464, p1155, 2007 Activities of the BGWG

6. XMM-Newton 6 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: I. Blank Sky Files SAS Threads There are plans to incorporate another thread to deal with Blank Sky Files (to be released by the 18 th of June, before the 10 th SAS Workshop) : How to use MOS background blank field files (exist) How to use pn background blank field files (by I. de la Calle) (Or merge both in one as suggested by J. Carter). Changes to Blank Sky Web Pages at the SOC J. Carter suggested some changes which will be implemented Small Window Blank Sky files Any updates ? The recommendation to the users is to make use of FWC data. Is this still the preferred approach ? Where is this mentioned ?

7. XMM-Newton 7 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: I. Blank Sky Files Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar 2009 News #84 Performance Total number of requests up to the end of Apr 09: 82 (28 users) If request is too generic, the user is asked to resubmit. Responding to user requests on average within a 3 day period. Future of Blank Sky Files Adding more data Create Blank Sky Files from SAS v9.0 event files Short-term plan (<2 years): keep semi-automatic approach unless demand rises above current levels. Long-term plan (>2+ years): port the system to a fully automatic system.

8. XMM-Newton 8 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: II. FWC Filter wheel closed (FWC) data o Data gathered from calibration observations with filter wheel in closed position o Released in September 2006: stacked collections of FWC data available for MOS and pn o Dedicated EPIC FWC calibration observation: NRCO#70 in 2007 Rout. Cal. 10 ksec /month New approach implemented in the Routine Calibration Plan as of summer 2009 o 2 x 10 ksec RCO; CLOSED FF (10 ksec/semester) o Should there be evidence of response inhomogeneities, this can be increased via NRCOs o Additionally, during all the slews in every 4 th revolution, the MOS cameras can be set to CLOSED FF (pn slews are used for science) o Updates to Repository To solve some user reported issues regarding 'corrupted' X/Y coordinates, the observations have been recast to point at a fixed point in the sky (RA=DEC=PA=0). These new files have replaced the older files in the BGWG web pages (Feb 2009)

9. XMM-Newton 9 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: II. FWC

10. XMM-Newton 10 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: II. FWC Work has been started on EPIC-pn FWC Full Frame (FF) Search the archive for EPIC FWC observations in FF 11 new observations found (2007-2010) Run SAS tasks cifbuild, odfingest, epproc and emproc  produce event_list Filter event_list following same procedure as files currently in the repository Filter expresion as taken from headers: pn PI > 150 MOS PATTERN<=12 && FLAG&0x766a0f63==0 Merge event_list (ra=dec=0) The whole procedure was made automatic (perl script) No attcalc or evigweight tasks used CURRENTLY ON REPOSITORY

11. XMM-Newton 11 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: II. FWC Rev Obs ID Time[s] Obs_Start (UTC) 1355_0413580201_EPN_S008_ImagingEvts.ds 13873 2007-05-04T21:07:29 1393_0412580201_EPN_S003_ImagingEvts.ds 56973 2007-07-19T04:00:32 1430_0511010401_EPN_S003_ImagingEvts.ds 12917 2007-09-30T10:49:40 1449_0502041701_EPN_S003_ImagingEvts.ds 11917 2007-11-07T08:09:56 1468_0504102401_EPN_S004_ImagingEvts.ds 11949 2007-12-15T22:00:38 1500_0511011001_EPN_S003_ImagingEvts.ds 13921 2008-02-17T05:28:14 1512_0505480701_EPN_S002_ImagingEvts.ds 13918 2008-03-11T19:40:52 1561_0556214401_EPN_S003_ImagingEvts.ds 3125 2008-06-18T20:21:32 1569_0553912001_EPN_S003_ImagingEvts.ds 11913 2008-07-03T15:42:18 1587_0556214601_EPN_S003_ImagingEvts.ds 11922 2008-08-08T21:40:38 1844_0604890201_EPN_S003_ImagingEvts.ds 11918 2010-01-03T17:59:25 TOTAL 174346 secs (Current Repository: 346412 secs) Merged File Size: 1.1 Gb (Current Repository File Size: 850 Mb)

12. XMM-Newton 12 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: II. FWC Flag=0 && pattern <=4

13. XMM-Newton 13 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: II. FWC Update of Web Pages

14. XMM-Newton 14 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: III. ESAS XMM-Newton Extended Source Analysis Software Package (ESAS) o Released in March 2006 for EPIC MOS detectors. Create model quiescent particle background spectra for user defined regions within the FOV of the detectors. Create bkg subtracted & exposure corrected images. o Based on software described in Snowden, Collier & Kuntz (2004, ApJ 610, 1182) and updated & applied to a catalog of cluster observations in Snowden, Mushotzky, Kuntz, Davis (2008, A&A 478, 615). PERL scripts (calling SAS tasks) & stand-alone Fortran 77 programs + FITS Calibration files o Version 2 released, 31 May 2007. o “If problems arise or results look odd, please contact the XMM-Newton Helpdesk”. Suggestions for improving the software or documentation welcome. Documentation o Cookbook: incl. example data & recipe of spectral & image data processing Principal Ideas presented in UG meeting in 2007 and 2008

15. XMM-Newton 15 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: III. ESAS What is new ? o In order to improve the maintenance of ESAS, and to make the life of the users easier, the code has been integrated (A. Ibarra, SOC) in SAS and released as part of SAS v9.0 in June 2009. o The ESAS code will be maintained by S. Snowden (XMM-Newton Guest Observer Facility, NASA/GSFC). There will no longer be a stand-alone version of ESAS. o The inclusion of EPIC-pn analysis in ESAS is currently on-going but not likely to happen for the release of SAS v.10.0 o The SAS v.9.0 release of the MOS and mosaicing ESAS tasks include upgrades and improvements.

16. XMM-Newton 16 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: III.ESAS Future plans for ESAS o Completing the EPIC-pn component of the ESAS software in SAS, including its evaluation. o An updated ESAS Cookbook to reflect the inclusion of ESAS in SAS (just received, 18 th of March, v.4 of ESAS Cookbook). o Development of analysis scripts to tie ESAS and SAS which simplify tasks such as image creation and mosaicing, …. o Development of SAS analysis threads (SOC). o Trainee student will start this year to work on the comparison of the application of different background treatment methods (using SNR)

17. XMM-Newton 17 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Products of the BGWG: IV. Scripts Estimation of the residual Soft Proton Flare contamination (Developed by Silvano Molendi, Andrea De Luca & Alberto Leccardi (2004, A&A 419, 837), and coded by A. Read, for EPIC event files, to estimate the amount of residual Soft Proton flare contamination) The 'images' script: a tool to create attractive XMM-Newton Images (Developed at the XMM-Newton SOC as part of a trainee project to create attractive multi-energy band images using and merging data from the three EPIC cameras) NEW: Background correction for faint extended EPIC-pn emission (Method developed by M. Bauer (MPE) to use a local estimate of the sky background to correct for faintM. Bauer extended emission in EPIC-PN data; Bauer, M. et al 2007, astro-ph/0711.3182) New MethodStandard Method The group holds a repository of scripts for background treatment. SOC support is given on a best-effort basis The aim is to incorporate useful/validated scripts as SAS tasks

18. XMM-Newton 18 I. de la Calle - SRE-OAX Summary Blank Sky Files Update/create SAS threads (MOS; pn ; both) Update some information at SOC Web Pages Recommendation for Small Window observations Filter Wheel Close Observations As of Jan 2010, the SOC takes over the responsibility for updating the FWC repository Update of repository has started with pn FF and other modes and MOS will follow once an approach for the update is agreed on XMM-ESAS Part of SAS as of v.9.0 (only MOS analysis available; pn on the way) Stand alone version of the Cookbook (v.4 2010), will merge with SAS Manual when full XMM-ESAS version is ready within SAS (not likely to happen for v.10.0) Trainee in 2010 to start working in comparison of background treatment methods Scripts Nothing done so far Any plans for the maintenance of the scripts or future plans ? Should they be part of SAS ?