This procedure provides a step-by-step example of using the X-Ray Spectral Fitting Package (XSPEC) to analyze LAT Gamma-Ray Burst observations.

Prerequisites

• ScienceTools v6r0p5, or later

• gtselect

• gtbin

• gtrspgen

• Spacecraft pointing and livetime history file
  (also referred to as the FT2 file.)
  
  See Extract the LAT Data.

• XSPEC, used as a spectral analysis tool in step 4 of this procedure.
  (See Xanadu Data Analysis for X-Ray Astronomy.)

Note:

• LAT GRB data can also be spectrally analyzed using the likelihood tools for source analysis.

Assumptions

It is assumed that:

• You are in your work directory.

• You know the time and location of the burst you wish to analyze.

Note: For the purposes of this thread, the relevant burst properties are:

• RA = 47.907 degrees
• Dec = -11.758 degrees
• Tstart = 254033757. s (Mission Elapsed Time)
• Tstop = 254034457. s (Mission Elapsed Time)

• You have extracted the files used in this tutorial; these files can be found at:

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/glast/workbook/sciToolsData/
latGrbAnalysis/LAT_GRB_fit.tgz

Steps:

1. Extract and select the LAT data.
2. Bin the data.
3. Create the detector response matrix (DRM).
4. Run XSPEC (Linux users only).

To obtain LAT data, refer to Extract the LAT Data and extract the data from the database. Here the extracted file has been renamed grb_ft1.fits.

Perform further selections with gtselect as desired. For example:

glitch [95] [cillis]: gtselect
Input FT1 file [LAT_090119205.fits] : 
Output FT1 file [GRB090119205_spec_ft1.fits] : 
RA for new search center (degrees) <0 - 360> [47.907] : 
Dec for new search center (degrees) <-90 - 90> [-11.758] : 
radius of new search region (degrees) <0 - 180> [10] : 
start time (MET in s) [254033757] : 
end time (MET in s) [254034457] : 
lower energy limit (MeV) [30] : 
upper energy limit (MeV) [300000] : 
Event classes (-1=all, 0=Front, 1=Back) <-1 - 4> [-1] : 
Done.
glitch [96] [cillis]: 
            

Notes:

• The photons are selected from:
  • A circle of radius 10 degrees around the best burst position
  • The LAT's 30-300,000 MeV energy range was selected
  • A duration of 700 s was selected. Most of the photons originate from the first ~6 s.
  • The '-1' under Event classes indicates that the broadest class of photons will be used.

Use gtbin to bin the photon data into spectra that XSPEC can analyze. The following is a transcript of running this tool.

glitch [97] [cillis]: gtbin
This is gtbin version v2r0p3
Type of output file <CCUBE|CMAP|LC|PHA1|PHA2> [PHA1] : 
Event data file name [GRB080104A_spec_ft1.fits] : GRB090119205_spec_ft1.fits
Output file name [GRB080104A.pha] : GRB090119205.pha
Spacecraft data file name [FT2.fits] : FT2.fits
Algorithm for defining energy bins <FILE|LIN|LOG> [LOG] : 
Start value for first energy bin in MeV [30] : 
Stop value for last energy bin in MeV [300000] : 
Number of logarithmically uniform energy bins [32] : 
glitch [98] [cillis]:
            

Notes:

• The choice of pha1 for 'Type of output file' indicates that you want to create a single PHA file — the standard FITS file with binned spectra — spanning the entire time range.

• The input file created by gtselect is GRB090119205_spec_ft1.fits. The output file is GRB090119205.pha (the extension .pha indicates that this is a standard PHA file). The spacecraft data file is called FT2.fits.

• LAT photon energies are not quantized and therefore you can choose the desired channel bins.

Here a logarithmic grid has been chosen with 32 bins between a start energy of 30 MeV and stop energy of 300,000 MeV, i.e., 8 bins per energy decade.

A Detector Response Matrix, created as a single RSP file (i.e,. we do not split the DRM into separate RMF and ARF files), is required to analyze the .pha file with XSPEC.

The tool for the LAT is called gtrspgen, and the following is a transcript of running this tool.

glitch [103] [cillis]: gtrspgen
This is gtrspgen version v2
Response calculation method (GRB, PS) <GRB|PS> [GRB] : 
Spectrum file name [GRB090119205.pha] : 
Spacecraft data file name [FT2.fits] : 
Output file name [GRB090119205.rsp] : 
Time of GRB (s) [254033757] : 
Response function to use, Handoff|DC2|DC2A|DC2FA|DC2BA|DC2FB etc [P5_v0_source] : 
Algorithm for defining true energy bins <FILE|LIN|LOG> [LOG] : 
Start value for first energy bin in MeV [30] : 
Stop value for last energy bin in MeV [500000] : 
Number of logarithmically uniform energy bins [100] : 
glitch [104] [cillis]: 
            

Notes:

• We assume that the instrument response changes as a result of the LAT's pointing on timescales longer than the burst duration.

This assumption is indicated by the choice of 'GRB' for 'Response calculation method' if our photons were selected over '700 s' because gtselect will not currently select photons over short durations. However, most of the photons are in the first ~6 s, justifying the 'GRB' choice.

• The input file is GRB090119205.pha, the PHA file we created with gtbin

The output file is GRB090119205.rsp (the .rsp extension indicates that this is a standard RSP file).

• gtrspgen reads the location of the burst and the size of the extraction region from the PHA file. However, you must input the time at which the DRM is to be calculated.

• In gtrspgen you choose the incident photon energy ('true energy') bins. gtrspgen reads the apparent photon channel energy grid from the PHA file. The DRM created by gtrspgen is the mapping from the incident photon energy bins into the apparent photon channels. These incident photon energy bins need not be the same as the channels:

• If there are only a few channels then the calculation of the expected number of photons in each channel will be more accurate if there are more incident photon energy bins.
  

• You might want to include some incident photon energy bins above and below the range of channels to account for the LAT's finite energy resolution. Incident energy bins above the highest channel energy is particularly important if some for the photon's energy leaks out of the detector.

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You now have the two files necessary to analyze the burst spectrum with XSPEC:

• A PHA file with the spectrum.
• An RSP file with the DRM.

1. Start XSPEC.

Note: The default version is now release 12 (XSPEC12).

2. Load in the data:

XSPEC12>data GRB090119205.pha

3. Load in the DRM:

XSPEC12>response GRB090119205.rsp

4. Load in a power law model

XSPEC12>model powerlaw

5. Choose the parameters' initial values.

Note: Power law indices tend to be near 2 for gamma-ray sources.

6. Fit the data:

XSPEC12>fit

7. To look at the fit using energy as the x-axis, enter:

XSPEC12>setplot energy

XSPEC12>plot ldata

• The number of photons in the spectrum
• The number of counts per bin (and therefore the number of bins)
• The energy range that should be fit
• The fitting statistic