MIT Libraries homeMIT Libraries logoDSpace@MIT

MIT
View Item 
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

AN EMPIRICAL METHOD FOR IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF RXTE HEXTE SPECTRA

Author(s)
Grinberg, Victoria; McClintock, Jeffrey E.; Pottschmidt, Katja; Rothschild, Richard E.; Garcia, Javier A.; Steiner, James F; ... Show more Show less
Thumbnail
DownloadGarcia-2016-AN EMPIRICAL METHOD.pdf (605.0Kb)
PUBLISHER_POLICY

Publisher Policy

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.

Terms of use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
We have developed a correction tool to improve the quality of Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) High Energy X-ray Timing Experiment (HEXTE) spectra by employing the same method we used earlier to improve the quality of RXTE Proportional Counter Array (PCA) spectra. We fit all of the hundreds of HEXTE spectra of the Crab individually to a simple power-law model, some 37 million counts in total for Cluster A and 39 million counts for Cluster B, and we create for each cluster a combined spectrum of residuals. We find that the residual spectrum of Cluster A is free of instrumental artifacts while that of Cluster B contains significant features with amplitudes ~1%; the most prominent is in the energy range 30–50 keV, which coincides with the iodine K edge. Starting with the residual spectrum for Cluster B, via an iterative procedure we created the calibration tool hexBcorr for correcting any Cluster B spectrum of interest. We demonstrate the efficacy of the tool by applying it to Cluster B spectra of two bright black holes, which contain several million counts apiece. For these spectra, application of the tool significantly improves the goodness of fit, while affecting only slightly the broadband fit parameters. The tool may be important for the study of spectral features, such as cyclotron lines, a topic that is beyond the scope of this paper.
Date issued
2016-02
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102648
Department
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
García, Javier A., Victoria Grinberg, James F. Steiner, Jeffrey E. McClintock, Katja Pottschmidt, and Richard E. Rothschild. “ AN EMPIRICAL METHOD FOR IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF RXTE HEXTE SPECTRA .” The Astrophysical Journal 819, no. 1 (February 29, 2016): 76. © 2016 The American Astronomical Society
Version: Final published version
ISSN
1538-4357
0004-637X

Collections
  • MIT Open Access Articles

Browse

All of DSpaceCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

Login

Statistics

OA StatisticsStatistics by CountryStatistics by Department
MIT Libraries homeMIT Libraries logo

Find us on

Twitter Facebook Instagram YouTube RSS

MIT Libraries navigation

SearchHours & locationsBorrow & requestResearch supportAbout us
PrivacyPermissionsAccessibility
MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Content created by the MIT Libraries, CC BY-NC unless otherwise noted. Notify us about copyright concerns.