Guest Investigator Program

The Swift GI Program solicits proposals for basic research that is relevant to the Swift GRB mission. Cycle 16 of the Swift GI Program began in April 2020 and will last for 12 months. Cycle 17 will begin in April 2021 and last for 12 months.

The Swift GI Program is open to all principal investigators, but funding is only available to scientists at U.S. institutions for proposals with a principal investigator at a U.S. institution. U.S.-based co-investigators on non-U.S. led proposals do not qualify for funding.

The GI Program is intended to provide the following benefits to participating scientists.

• Provide funding for theoretical investigations that will advance Swift mission science return. Theory proposals are not restricted to GRB investigations and will be considered provided that they address the degree to which the investigations directly advance Swift science goals.

• Provide funding for correlative GRB observations that involve new or enhanced ground-based infrared capabilities for investigating high redshift bursts. Proposals to bring new or enhanced ground-based IR capabilities online may require funding substantially above the average award. Such budget requests will be considered provided they are strongly justified.

• Provide funding for other correlative observations that will support Swift observations. This category includes both correlative GRB observations and correlative non-GRB observations.

• Provide funding for new Swift (GRB and non-GRB) projects.

• Allow observations of non-GRB targets, target of opportunity observations of non-GRB sources, target of opportunity observations of GRB sources detected by other instruments, and fill-in targets.

It is anticipated that a total of five million seconds of observing time will be made available to the Cycle 17 GI program. Swift observations will be performed only as the result of an uploaded ground command through the normal science planning process. Proposers may not request autonomous slewing. GI observations will have a lower scheduling priority than GRBs and will be observed on a best-effort basis as time becomes available in the observing schedule. This restriction means that successful proposers should be aware that they are not assured 100% of the time awarded will actually be available. Every effort will be made to observe 80% or more of an accepted program within scheduling constraints. A single observation is defined as one requested pointing at a target, but proposers should be aware that, due to Swift's low orbit and scheduling priorities, any GI observation longer than approximately 20-30 min is likely to be split into multiple snapshots on different orbits.

Non-target-of-opportunity proposals are subject to the following limitations.

• Requested time per observation will be limited to between 1000 s (minimum) and 40 000 s (maximum).

• Monitoring programs are defined as programs requiring two or more observations of the same object, each of which is considered to be a “visit”.

• No more than 2000 visits will be permitted in Cycle 17. This is the total for all proposal categories, including both monitoring and non-monitoring observation requests.

Time constrained observations are subject to the following limitations.

• The length of the observing window must exceed three (3) hours.

There is no limit on the number of time-constrained observations.

ToO proposals are subject to the following constraints.

• Proposals must give exact, detailed trigger criteria and a realistic estimate of the probability of triggering during Cycle 17.

• Proposals must assign a priority to each ToO target based on the time criticality of the observation. For the time of the trigger the priorities are described as:
  • Highest Urgency: Observations should be performed within four (4) hours
  • High Urgency: Observations should be performed within 24 hours.
  • Medium Urgency: Observations can be performed within 1-7 days.
  • Low Urgency: Observations can be performed within weeks.

• There are no restrictions on the maximum number of highest- and high-urgency ToOs that will be performed.

Large proposals are defined as proposals that have more than 100 targets or more than 100 ks total exposure time. Due to Swift's low Earth orbit, and scheduling priorities for other objects, any long observation exceeding a few ks will be broken up into several different visits on different orbits.

Fill-in targets are intended to provide a list of peer-reviewed targets that can be used to fill in gaps in Swift's planned science observations timeline. Fill-in targets must not be ToOs, must have no observational constraints, and can not require multiple observations. The total requested integration time must be between 1000 s and 40 000 s. There is no guarantee that any fill-in target will be observed, or reobserved if observations are interrupted. There is no funding available for fill-in observations.

Key Projects are intended to greatly advance the Swift science program, enhance its breadth of impact, and represent an enduring legacy of Swift results. Proposals in this category may request support for new Swift projects, theoretical investigations, observations of non-GRB non-ToO targets, and observations of ToO targets. The proposed research plans can be carried out in one or two years. Key Projects proposals may also require funding in the range of $100,000 per year. Such budget requests will be considered, provided they are strongly justified. Proposals requesting fill-in targets or support for correlative observations cannot be submitted into this category.

Successful proposers do not get any proprietary rights to any Swift data. Table 1 lists the critical dates for Cycle 17 GI proposals. For more information please see the Swift Guest Investigator Program Web page.

Table 1: Critical dates for the Swift Cycle 17 GI Program.

Date	Action
Sep 25, 2020	Phase 1 Proposals Due at 7.30pm EDT
early Dec 2020	Proposal Review
Feb 2021	Phase 2 Budget Proposals Due
Apr 1, 2021	Cycle 17 Investigations Begin
Mar 31, 2022	Cycle 17 Investigations End