Automated XRT Analysis Tools

For GRBs, enhanced (improved-precision) positions, light curves, hardness ratios, and spectra are automatically produced from the XRT data and posted online as soon as they have been created. These products are customizable, e.g. the light curve binning or temporal coverage of the spectra can be changed. These products are of verified reliability and ready for scientific analysis, however users are advised to sanity-check the results before use. For example, low fractional-exposure light-curve bins, or light-curve bins with very few counts (implying a poorly chosen bin size) should often be discarded.

An online XRT product generator is provided. This tool allows users to build X-ray light-curves, spectra and images of any point source object observed by Swift. All products are publication-quality, and account for all analysis issues such as pile-up and the presence of bad columns. Documentation (and links to published papers about the system) is available online. In addition, for users who prefer to use the software directly to create the desired products, data analysis threads are provided online, detailing the basic steps required for extracting data products. Among other topics, these webpages highlight how to account for pile-up and the best way to deal with background subtraction in WT mode. Information about known calibration and science analysis issues are listed on the XRT Digest Page. Data analysis queries can be sent to swifthelp@leicester.ac.uk.