The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory

Making BAT Light Curves

1. Overview:

This thread describes how to make a light curve from BAT event data using the 'batbinevt' task.

Read this thread if you want to: Make a background-subtracted light curve from BAT data.

Last update: 2007-07-17

2. Prerequisites

We will use the original event list of GRB 050713A as an example (obsid 00145675 000). The event data should have been ray-traced by the SDC using the position of the GRB. Energy calibrations should also have been applied. See the Mask-Weighting and Energy Correction threads for more information.

3. Change into Event Directory

Change directories to the location of the event data. 

cd 00145675000/bat/event

4. Make the light curve

BAT light curves are made with the 'batbinevt' task. Here is an example: 

batbinevt infile=sw00145675000bevshsp_uf.evt.gz outfile=onesec.lc outtype=LC \
  timedel=1.0 timebinalg=u energybins=15-150 \
  detmask=../hk/sw00145675000bcbdq.hk.gz clobber=YES

5. Plot the Light Curve

You can plot the light curve with 'fplot' or 'fv'. Example: 

      fplot onesec.lc offset=yes
         X column = TIME
         Y column = RATE[ERROR]

you will have to adjust the X range to see the burst since there are large amounts of extraneous data included by the SDC. For example: r x -100 3000 zooms on the first 3000 seconds

If the trigger time (TRIGTIME) keyword is present in the light curve file, then it is convenient to plot the light curve after subtracting this time as an offset. It is easiest to do this with the 'fv' task. Run 'fv' on the light curve file and select 'Plot'. For the X value, type TIME - TRIGTIME and the trigger time will be placed at the origin of the plot.

onesec.png
Figure 1. Result of plotting the one second light curve of GRB 050713A in fv.

6. Changing the Energy Binning

You can choose different energy bins using the 'energybins' parameter to the task. Give any energy range ELOW to EHIGH as "ELOW-EHIGH". Be sure to use an energy range appropriate to the BAT (within 14-200 keV).

An easy way to make light-curves in multiple bands is to re-run the task with different energy ranges. For example, if you want to make light curves in the 15-50 and 50-150 keV bands, you can run the task twice: 

   batbinevt ... energybins=15-50 ...

   batbinevt ... energybins=50-150 ...

This will produce two light curve files, each with the different energy ranges.

Another way to make multi-channel light curves is to specify both energybins in one command. In the example above of two bands (15-50 and 50-150 keV), the command would be: 

   batbinevt ... energybins=15-50,50-150 ...

This will produce one light curve file with a vector RATE column. You can plot these within 'fv' using RATE[1] and RATE[2] as the Y column names.

7. Changing the time binning

The task 'batbinevt' has several options for time binning of light curves.

The user-specified binning gives you the freedom to choose precisely the time bin edges that you wish (expressed in mission elapsed time). You specify these bin edges with a good time interval file (GTI file). The task 'battblocks' can produce a set of "interesting" time bins automatically using the Bayesian block algorithm. You can also construct a GTI file by hand (see below).

8. Optional: Making a GTI file

This example shows how to make a GTI file with user-specified time bins. We will assume the time bins of interest are already known relative to the trigger time. The goal will be to make a GTI file with absolute mission elapsed times.

For example, enter the time bin edges in the text file gti.txt. These are in seconds relative to the trigger time. Of course you can choose any relative times that you wish. 

# START STOP
-500   -400
-400   -300
-300   -250
-250   -200
-200   -150
-150   -100
-100    -75
 -75    -50
 -50    -40
 -40    -30
 -30    -20
 -20    -10
 -10      0
   0     10
  10     20
  20     30
  30     40
  40     50
  50     75
  75    100
 100    150
 150    200
 200    250
 250    300
 300    400
 400    500

Describe the good time interval column names in the file gti.col. 

START 1D s
STOP 1D s

Enter required keywords into the file gti.head 

MJDREFI = 51910          / Swift reference epoch: days
MJDREFF = 0.00074287037  / Swift reference epoch: fractional days
TIMEZERO = 0.0           / Time offset value
TRIGTIME = 142921742.016 / Trigger time: ** Change for your burst! **

And create the relative time good time interval. 

ftcreate gti.col gti.txt offset.gti headfile=gti.head extname=GTI

Finally, add the trigger mission elapsed time (TRIGTIME=142921742.016 for this particular GRB) to make an absolute-time good time interval file. 

ftcopy offset.gti'[1][col START=START+TRIGTIME;STOP=STOP+TRIGTIME]' absolute.gti

You can use this good time interval file to extract the light curve values in your desired time bin ranges: 

batbinevt infile=sw00145675000bevshsp_uf.evt.gz outfile=mybins.lc outtype=LC \
  timedel=1.0 timebinalg=g energybins=15-150 gtifile=absolute.gti \
  detmask=../hk/sw00145675000bcbdq.hk.gz clobber=YES

9. Modifications