Gerard Fitzpatrick Tutor: Andy Pollock Trainee Project 2009 The Ups & Downs of AB Dor Gerard Fitzpatrick Tutor: Andy Pollock Trainee Project 2009 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

Overview Introduction Middly Bit Project AB Dor XMM (really brief) Middly Bit Data reduction & Analysis XMMlccorr Results Conclusion & Future prospects for project 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

Project: Ups & Downs of AB Dor Project Description AB Doradus is a pre main sequence star which generates wildly varying X-rays, going up and down in a few hours. XMM-Newton has observed it many times to help maintain the instruments aboard the spacecraft. This project will investigate how the x-ray emission spectrum changes during its ceaseless activity. Motivation Large amount of data not yet analysed 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

AB Dor Characteristics Zero-Age-Main-Sequence Star (ZAMS), spectral type KO-K1 V Tertiary System: AB Dor A & AB Dor B separated by 12 arcsecs Impossible to resolve with EPIC & RGS Jan-Uwe Ness : Chandra observation Relative intensity of emission 5% Prot 0.51479d X-Ray emission from hot corona Sunspots 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

XMM Launched in 1999 Instruments 2 RGS (reflective grating spectrometer) 0.35-2.5 keV energy range Effective area 185 cm2 @ 1 keV FOV 5´ 2 EPIC (European Photon Imaging Camera) MOS type imagers 0.1-15 keV energy range Effective area 922 cm2 @ 1keV FOV 33 ´ X 33 ´ 1 EPIC PN type imager 0.1 – 15 keV energy range Effective area 1227 cm2 @ 1keV FOV 27.5 ´ X 27.5 ´ 1 OM (optical monitor) 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

XMM Observations AB Dor observed 31 times Majority of them for calibration purposes Useable observations: 31 RGS observations – 66 exposures MOS observations – 50 exposures PN observations – 4 exposures 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

PN Small Mode Result: 4 Useable PN observations Total of 45 PN exposures (discounting timing mode) Of these 24 are closed calibration exposures Of the remaining 21, 17 are small window mode 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

Data Reduction & Analysis SAS: Scientific Analysis System Specifically designed to reduce and analyze data from XMM Reduction – odfingest, rgsproc with src coordinates, ep(m)proc etc ..... Spectra & lightcurve extraction – rgslccorr, epiclccorr, evselect etc XSPEC – X-Ray spectral fitting Package 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

Light Curves Red: RGS Blue: MOS Green: PN 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

Generating Simultaneous Light Curves RGS generally turns on first – use T start as reference time Pass this time as argument to rgslccorr & evselect Need to check filters & mode to make sure a certain exposure is suitable For Epic - need to select regions for extraction of source & background Can be up to 12 eventlists per observation – tedious! 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

XMMlccorr Perl script to automatically generate exactly simultaneous light curves for all 5 of XMM’s instruments for one observation using SAS packages Completely Automatic – directories cont Extract observation start times, mode & filters from event files Automatic source & background expression generation for EPIC exposures based on operation modes Convert source coordinates to detector coordinates using SAS tool – esky2det Depending on mode background is extracted from different regions Generate simultaneous light curves 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

Simultaneous light curve 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

Spectra 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

Conclusions so far.... Lot of work still to do AB Dor – extremely variable over short time ranges XMMlccorr – hopefully released as a SAS package Lot of work still to do Spectral analysis – look for rotational modulation in spectral lines 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting

Thanks! ESAC Andy Pollock All the trainees: Jamie, Maria, Mael, Leila, Cecile, Bea, Ana & Cherry Especially Maria!! Cos she is so (super)cool! And Antonio! 2009 Summer Alumni Trainee Meeting