Engineering topics

Kippen, R Marc

Publications and source records attributed to Kippen, R Marc.

3 records

DOE OSTI2012

THREE YEARS OF FERMI GBM EARTH OCCULTATION MONITORING: OBSERVATIONS OF HARD X-RAY/SOFT GAMMA-RAY SOURCES

The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) on board Fermi has been providing continuous data to the astronomical community since 2008 August 12. In this paper, we present the results of the analysis of the first three years of these continuous data using the Earth occultation technique to monitor a catalog of 209 sources. From this catalog, we detect 99 sources, including 40 low-mass X-ray binary/neutron star systems, 31 high-mass X-ray binary/neutron star systems, 12 black hole binaries, 12 active galaxies, and 2 other sources, plus the Crab Nebula, and the Sun. Nine of these sources are detected in the 100-300 keV band, including seven black hole binaries, the active galaxy Cen A, and the Crab. The Crab and Cyg X-1 are also detected in the 300-500 keV band. GBM provides complementary data to other sky-monitors below 100 keV and is the only all-sky monitor above 100 keV. Up-to-date light curves for all of the catalog sources can be found online.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2011

Calibration of the GLAST Burst Monitor Detectors

The GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) will augment the capabilities of GLAST for the detection of cosmic gamma-ray bursts by extending the energy range (20 MeV to > 300 GeV) of the Large Area Telescope (LAT) towards lower energies by 2 BGO-detectors (150 keV to 30 MeV) and 12 NaI(Tl) detectors (10 keV to 1 MeV). The physical detector response of the GBM instrument for GRBs is determined with the help of Monte Carlo simulations, which are supported and verified by on-ground calibration measurements, performed extensively with the individual detectors at the MPE in 2005. All flight and spare detectors were irradiated with calibrated radioactive sources in the laboratory (from 14 keV to 4.43 MeV). The energy/channel-relations, the dependences of energy resolution and effective areas on the energy and the angular responses were measured. Due to the low number of emission lines of radioactive sources below 100 keV, calibration measurements in the energy range from 10 keV to 60 keV were performed with the X-ray radiometry working group of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) at the BESSY synchrotron radiation facility, Berlin.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2011

WHEN A STANDARD CANDLE FLICKERS

The Crab Nebula is the only hard X-ray source in the sky that is both bright enough and steady enough to be easily used as a standard candle. As a result, it has been used as a normalization standard by most X-ray/gamma-ray telescopes. Although small-scale variations in the nebula are well known, since the start of science operations of the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) in 2008 August, a {approx}7% (70 mCrab) decline has been observed in the overall Crab Nebula flux in the 15-50 keV band, measured with the Earth occultation technique. This decline is independently confirmed in the {approx}15-50 keV band with three other instruments: the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (Swift/BAT), the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array (RXTE/PCA), and the Imager on-Board the INTEGRAL Satellite (IBIS). A similar decline is also observed in the {approx}3-15 keV data from the RXTE/PCA and in the 50-100 keV band with GBM, Swift/BAT, and INTEGRAL/IBIS. The pulsed flux measured with RXTE/PCA since 1999 is consistent with the pulsar spin-down, indicating that the observed changes are nebular. Correlated variations in the Crab Nebula flux on a {approx}3 year timescale are also seen independently with the PCA, BAT, and IBIS from 2005 to 2008, with a flux minimum in 2007 April. As of 2010 August, the current flux has declined below the 2007 minimum.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗