Getting Ready for DC2

For users planning to come to the DC2 workshop, this page presents a "ToDo" list of recommended steps to help you prepare:

Get in touch

You'll need to request the following:

• JIRA Account (to access Confluence wiki pages)
• SLAC Account (to access the SLAC data servers)

Useful Links:

• Visit the DC2 general web page.
• Have a look to the agenda of the meeting.
• Visit the page with the science goals of the DC2 (TBR).

Background Information:

• High-Level Analysis of LAT Data: Use Cases - presentation by Seth Digel prepared for the SSC-LAT Working Group, June 2002

• DC1 Kickoff and DC1 Closeout - February 2004

• DC2 Software Workshop - June 2005

Step 1. Install DC2 Science Tools Code Release

To download and install the Science Tools, follow the instructions at:

DC2 Code Releases

The Science Tools use the FITS file format extensively for input and output of data tables and images, and you will want to install some utilities for viewing the contents of FITS files and making images and plots from them.

Several utilities are listed on the FITS Image Viewers and Format Converters page.

Among those listed, fv and ds9 will be used in presentations at the DC2 workshop. Both are available for Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.

Step 2. Perform simple exercises with Science Tools

1. The Science tools section of the workbook contains many interesting tutorials on the main science tools. Select the ones more related to your analysis.
2. Generate a simple sky with the observation simulator.
3. Follow the tutorial on binned likelihood analysis.
4. Follow the tutorial on GRB analysis.

Step 3. Do more complex exercise with Science Tools

1. Follow the tutorial on unbinned likelihood.
2. Follow the tutorial on Pulsar Analysis.

Step 4. Learn about different data products

For an introduction to the types of LAT data, see LAT Data Products and FITS Files by David Band.

Glast Data Server's LAT Data - Summary Ntuple - same data different formats for those who want to see the full set of events or who want to view them in an event display or want to do their analysis in ROOT.

Step 5. Learn about different event classes

To learn about the properties of different DC2 event classes, see:

Trigger and Filter settings and Event classes

Step 6. Look at the preliminary data release pages

1. Go to the GSSC or SLAC data server web pages.

Note: These pages will be changing shortly, but they will give you a preview of how to download DC2 data.

2. The description of the data format can be found here.