1. Marco Feroci7th AGILE WorkshopINAF/IASF Rome Monitoring the Hard X-ray Sky with SuperAGILE Marco Feroci (INAF/IASF Rome) on behalf of the SuperAGILE Team

2. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Outline Experiment Overview In-flight Performance Overview of Scientific Results from SuperAGILE: Wide Field Imaging Long-term Monitoring of Bright Galactic Sources Short Transients Gamma Ray Bursts Go deeper: SA observations of GX 301-2 Most of this talk to appear on Astronomy & Astrophysics : Feroci et al. 2009

3. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop AGILE mission – SuperAGILE experiment AGILE launched April 23, 2007 LEO orbit (550 km) 2.5° inclination Gamma (30 MeV – 50 GeV) + Hard X-ray instruments long pointings program SuperAGILE 4 x 1D coded mask imagers 6 arcmin angular resolution 18 – 60 keV energy band  15 mCrab 1 day sens. (5σ, on-axis) 2 us timing accuracy

4. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop SuperAGILE is a 2 x 1-D coded aperture resource-effective imager, devoted to image bright hard X-ray transients. The field of view is composed of two crossing regions of 107°x68°. Angular resolution is 6 arcmin (1D, both directions). IASF Roma 68°2 x 1-D 1-D 107° SuperAGILE in figures

5. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop SuperAGILE Imaging Z coding detectors X coding detectors Coded Direction Non-Coded Direction AGILE Pointing (in)Stability SA PSF & SA 1D Imaging: Making a liability an asset... 1° SA PSLA SuperAGILE data analysis is made very complex by the combination between the large attitude variation and the one-dimensional imaging. Attitude correction and Blind search of sources is done in a 2D space, but with 1D sensitivity. Computing time is critical.

6. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop A more complex field: 30 degrees from Galactic Center X coding detectorsZ coding detectors SuperAGILE Imaging

7. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop SuperAGILE PSLA & Sensitivity AGILE Attitude Post-facto Reconstruction: 1 arcmin In-flight Point Source Location Accuracy 90%: 1.5 arcmin In-flight 50 ks Sensitivity

8. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop SA Automated Orbital Analysis Normalized Counts for Crab Nebula: 0.15 cts cm -2 s -1 SA data are automatically processed after every contact of the spacecraft wih the Malindi ground station. 1D Images are integrated over the whole orbit, to obtain an unbiased picture of the sky. Sources are blind-searched for and identified, independently in both coordinates. Orbital source counts are normalized using the net exposure time and effective area for each detected source. Similar data processing is performed also on daily timescale.

9. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop 2-year GRID exposure

10. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop 2-year SA exposure

11. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Pittori et al., 2009 SuperAGILE Preliminary X-ray sources

12. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop SuperAGILE: detected sources This is NOT yet A CATALOG ! a. Non-uniform analysis of SA Data Archive (different SW versions for different epochs) b. Scientific Imaging SW not yet optimized c. S/N ratio for sources not optimized (Earth occultation not yet excluded in the image integration) c. Integration times typically limited to ~40 ks exposure or shorter (  15-20 mCrab limiting sensitivity)

13. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop SA detected sources: 0 th Order Statistics  60 sources, of which: 34 LMXB (56%) 19 HMXB (31%) 4 AGN (6%) 3 SGRs/AXPs 1 PWN With a Flux cut at 15 mCrab: ISGRI (Bird et al. 2007):  50 sources (57% LMXB, 38% HMXB) BAT (Tueller et al. 2009):  40 sources (59% LMXB, 31% HMXB) Despite the large non-uniformity of analysis and expsoure, source variability, …. SA sources  consistent with flux-limited LogN-LogS of persistent hard X-ray sources

14. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Simultaneous Wide Field Imaging

15. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop A Case Study: The Vela Field - Image Angular separation: Vela X-1 – GX 301-2 37° GX 301-2 – LMC X-4 39° Cen X-3 – Vela X-1 29°

16. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Vela Field: Light Curves & Pulse Profiles

17. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Long-Term Monitoring of Bright Galactic Sources

18. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop 44 days 45 days 20 days 51 days Del Monte et al. Submitted to A&A 2 Nov 20071 Dec 2008 SuperAGILE (20 – 50 keV) RXTE/ASM (2 – 12 keV) 160 days,  6.1 x 10 6 s Cyg X-1 in hard state

19. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop GRS 1915+105 during a radio flare (Trushkin S. et al., ATel #1509) (J.C.A. Miller-Jones, 2007) Historical radio mapping Radio monitoring

20. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop 15 - 18 April 2008 Giant radio flare of Cygnus X-3 detected by RATAN-600 radio telescope Radio flux increasing of a factor ~10 3, from ~10 mJy to ~10 Jy S.A.Trushkin et al., ATel #1483 10 Jy is typical flux for plasmoids emission ! Cygnus X-3 during a giant radio flare! In the same period SuperAGILE revealed a sudden increase in the hard X-ray emission See Talk by A. Chen to hear the rest of the story

21. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Continuous vs Sparse Monitoring 300 mCrab 2.4 Crab Swift/BAT

22. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Long-term Monitoring of Sco X-1 8 Crabs 100 s 2 Crabs

23. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Sco X-1: orbit history Time (bin 100s) SA Coordinate (bin 3 arcmin) Counts AC-induced Deadtime due to Transit through SAA Earth Occultation

24. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Rapid Flares from Sco X-1 SuperAGILE Raw Count Rates 200s 50s SAS 3 – 1-19 keV

25. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop http://agile.asdc.asi.it/sagilecat_sources.html The SuperAGILE Public Light Curves

26. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop The SuperAGILE Public Light Curves Results of the automated orbital analysis are immediately and automatically made public through the web page on the ASDC web site.

27. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Data products currently publicly distributed on the ASDC web site are the result of the automated analysis on orbital timescale only. The net sources integration time is typically 3 ks and only positive detections are included: upward bias on the flux ! Event files are not filtered for source visibility (wrt Earth occultation): bkg Poisson fluctuations up to 1.4 times higher: lower significance than best case. Fluxes are however normalized to the net source exposure. Source detections are included when the source is detected with at least 20% of the effective area. Unusual flux/source measurements are human-screened for validation before immission into the web page. Data analysis SW used in runtime not yet optimal. The SA Public Light Curves: CAVEATS

28. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Short X-ray Transients

29. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop AGILE Fast Reactions (May ‘09) 39 Astronomers’ Telegrams (ATel): 27 on Gamma-ray Transients 12 on X-ray Transients 37 GRB Coordinate Network (GCN) Telegrams: 21 on Gamma Ray Bursts (16 SA) 4 on Magnetars 12 with InterPlanetary Network (IPN) One fast communication every ~10 days

30. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop SAX J1750.8-2900: day timescale Sudden outburst of the X-ray Transient SAX J1750.8-2900 (Pacciani et al., ATel #1428) 4U 1700-377 AX J1749-2639 Sco X-1 4U 1700-377 GX 17+2 ~1 day

31. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop IGR J17473-2721: minute timescale Confirmed by later observations (ATels# : 1459, 1460, 1461, 1468) IGR J17473-2721/XTE J1747-274 is an X-ray Burster ! ATel #1445 (Del Monte et al.) – 27 Mar 2008 SuperAGILE detection of the first known type-I X-ray burst

32. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop SGR 0501+4516 SGR 1806-20 Unfavorable pointing strategy. Marginal cooperation from the sources … Only a few detections. Examples : 5-10 ms time bin Soft Gamma Repeaters: tenths of seconds

33. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop The Galactic Center

34. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Yesterday in the Galactic Center SKYBIN SKYCOORD DIRECTION ZONE RATE ERR_RATE CTS cm-2 s-1 EXPOSURE NAME SIGN 1428.88 -6.68057 X 15 1.39655 0.279310 0.457440 45017.2 Sco X-1 34.9787 1891.71 15.4799 X 12 0.586521 0.117304 0.0465814 46703.6 4U 1700-377 15.1582 1370.05 -9.49395 X 8 0.495455 0.0990910 0.0171424 43871.6 GX 17+2 13.5986 1857.82 13.9335 X 12 0.360108 0.0720216 0.0270270 46456.0 GX 349+2 9.33134 1597.11 1.49684 X 9 0.429247 0.0858494 0.0139616 44629.1 GX 5-1 9.15980 766.920 -34.2576 X 3 0.312803 0.0625605 0.0589205 43524.2 GRS 1915+105 8.73901 1574.64 0.400699 X 7 0.331132 0.0662264 0.00958806 44375.7 Ginga 1826-24 8.26159 1982.02 19.4848 X 12 0.248696 0.0497392 0.0222842 47381.2 OAO 1657-415 7.98617 1610.88 2.16789 X 9 0.253957 0.0507915 0.00847812 44675.7 GRS 1758-258 6.53055 1085.47 -22.2762 X 10 0.271741 0.0543482 0.0174138 43800.0 SWIFT J1753.5-0127 6.49230 1708.84 6.91432 X 8 0.202768 0.0405536 0.00648387 44998.6 4U 1820-303 6.39260 1503.75 -3.05522 X 9 0.170617 0.0341235 0.00582340 44294.8 GX 9+1 5.16577 1329.26 -11.4187 X 7 0.181133 0.0362266 0.00669337 43824.1 1M 1812-121 4.80630 One-day automatic integration on the GC: 13 sources from 38 mCrab to 3 Crab,

35. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Ginga 1826-24 4U 1820-303 GX 17+2 GRS 1758-258 Sco X-1 GX 1+4 GRS 1758-258 GX 17+2 Ginga 1826-24 GX 1+4 4U 1820-303 Postcards from Galactic Center 4U 1700-377 Ginga 1826-24 Sco X-1 GX 17+2 4U 1700-377 AX J1749.1-2639 GX 5-1 Ginga 1826-24 4U 1820-303 Ginga 1826-24 4U 1820-303 GX 17+2 GRS 1758-258 Sco X-1 Daily variability in the Galactic Center (counts image)

36. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Not Always Detections … (but see Talk by A. Chen)

37. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop 37 Cygnus Region Persistent Emission (1.20 ± 0.07) × 10 -6 cm -2 s -1 at 23,4 σσ Position: (l,b) = (78.37, 2.04)°, error ~ 0.12° 1-day flare on April 27-28, 2008 [ATel #1492] » (2.9 ± 0.8) × 10-6 cm-2 s-1 at 3.7 σ » Position: (l,b) = (78.1, 2.0)°, error ~ 0.8° 1-day flare on June 20-21, 2008 [ATel #1585] » (2.5 ± 0.7) × 10 -6 cm -2 s -1 at 4.9 σ » Position (l,b) = (78.6, 1.6)°, error ~ 0.7° 1-day flare on November 16-17, 2008 [ATel #1848] » (2.5 ± 0.7) × 10 -6 cm -2 s -1 at 4.8 σ » Position (l,b) = (78.6, 2.1)°, error ~ 0.7° Gamma association: 3EG J2020+4017 - 0FGL J2021.5+4026 Variable Sources in the Galactic Plane: e.g., 1AGL J2020+4032

38. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop 38 The variable gamma-ray sources are very bright (  Crab). SuperAGILE simultaneous observation: upper limits between 10 and 40 mCrab. Weak and steady hard X-ray source in Swift/BAT survey. L  /Lx » 1 Interpretation models based on leptonic jet emission from Microquasars predict large emission at X-rays, so they are excluded by the simultaneous SuperAGILE upper limits. Variable Sources in the Galactic Plane: a possible interpretation Romero & Vila (2009) propose interpretation in terms of emission from hadronic jets in Galactic microquasars. This model is able to reproduce a Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) where the luminosity at X-rays is very small, consistent with the AGILE observations.

39. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Gamma Ray Bursts (but see Talk by E. Moretti)

40. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Ettore Del Monte, INAF IASF Roma ● 29 GRBs localized by SuperAGILE (18 in 2x1-D and 11 in 1-D) since July 2007 => ~1 GRB/month ● 3 arcmin radius uncertainty on the localization and minimum detected fluence of ~5x10 -7 erg cm -2 ● 1 – 2 GRBs/month detected by SuperAGILE outside the FoV (input to Interplanetary Network) SA & Gamma Ray Bursts

41. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Individual Pulsations from Vela X-1 (P=283s) GRB090516 SA & Gamma Ray Bursts

42. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Time GRB090516Vela X-1 SA & Gamma Ray Bursts SA Coordinate

43. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Temporal properties of the HMXB GX 301-2 over a year-long observation with SuperAGILE Evangelista et al. (submitted to ApJ )

44. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop The HMXB GX 301-2 Orbital parameters P orb ~41.482 P spin = 670 – 690 s e = 0.44 a sin i = 368.4 ω = 310° System characteristics Discovered in 1969 (balloon obs.) d = 3kpc Hypergiant (B1 Ia+) companion Wray 977 39 < M < 53 M R= 62 R  Flares regularly 1-2 days before periastron and, sometimes, at apastron

45. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop hard X-ray and soft X-ray orbital lightcurve all RXTE/ASM data simultaneous obs.

46. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop SuperAGILE observations of GX 301-2 ~3.7 Ms observation

47. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop GX 301-2: spin history SuperAGILE spin down: ~1.3 s year -1

48. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Phase-resolved Pulse shape variability pre-periastron passage smoothest light curve interpulse structure main peak substructures Off-pulse level variations pulse width

49. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Orbital variability of pulsed fraction minimum of Pfrac during PP flare intermediate Pfrac value maximum of Pfrac value

50. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Wind + stream model (Leahy 2008) spherical wind Leahy quite convincingly modelled the orbital modulation of the soft X-ray emission in the GX 301-2 system as driven by wind accretion plus a mass stream, drawing an Archimedes spiral path and periodically intercepting the neutron star PP flare stream (tidal interaction) N H increase (0.2 – 0.3)

51. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Spectral variability (HR) – (wind + stream model)? ?

52. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop flux 18-60 keV pulsed fractionhardness Summary of source behavior along the orbit

53. Marco FerociINAF/IASF Rome The hard X-ray sky with SuperAGILE 7 th AGILE Workshop Despite the odd operating conditions (attitude and temperature) SuperAGILE proved to be an efficient monitor for bright hard X-ray sources. Detected sources (roughly) consistent with flux-limited LogN-LogS of persistent hard X- ray sources. GRBs discovered and arcmin-localized with a rate of ~1/month. Continuous and long-term monitoring guarantees coverage of unpredictable transient behaviour of sources, sometimes missed by scanning experiments. Long-term monitoring allows detailed timing studies of long-period X-ray pulsars (e.g., GX 301-2). SuperAGILE orbital light curves of bright sources automatically publicly distributed in nearly realtime. Improvements on the data analysis software algorithms, optimizations in processing time and larger computing power are being implemented. They will bring to:- Improved products for automated analysis - Longer integrations - Source Catalog - Image trigger for short transients and GRBs Summary & Perspectives