XMM-Newton Users' Group Meeting #3 Jan 2002 @ Washington Hilton, Washington DC Agenda ------ 1. Introductory remarks 2. Status summary from Project Scientist 3. Status summary from US Project Scientist 4. GOF summary of support work accomplished 5. Statement from GOF scientists 6. Concerns of Users' Group 7. Preparations for Senior Review Attendance ---------- XMM-Newton Users' Group Committee: Smita Mathur (telecon) Dave Saunders Wilt Saunders Pat Slane Fred Walter Ann Zabludoff (telecon) XMM-Newton Project Scientist: Fred Jansen (telecon) XMM-Newton Mission Scientists: Richard Griffiths (chair) Richard Mushotzky Instrument teams: France Cordova (OM, telecon) Frits Paerels (RGS) XMM-Newton GOF: Mike Arida Ilana Harrus Steve Snowden Martin Still 1. Introductory remarks. ------------------------ RG: All issues from meeting #2 have been resolved or superseeded. Minutes of all meetings will be posted to the User Committee section of the XMM GOF web page. Travel to User Group meetings will be covered by the XMM Project office. 2. Status summary from Project Scientist ---------------------------------------- FJ: The spacecraft is behaving well. There is an upcoming eclipse season where a strategy for switching the pn camera on and off is required to minimize thermal stresses on the detector. There also needs to be an orbital maneuveur since the non-visible window is now encroaching on science windows. The maximum exposure is now 136 ksec. Solar flares during Dec 2001 resulted in more serious detector degradation than first thought, but degradation is still within pre-launch expectations. Following the serious level of community frustration with the AO-2 process, AO-3 will be a two-stage process, with stage 1 consisting of a science proposal and request for total observing time. Following the review process, stage 2 will proceed for accepted proposals and will entail a detailed instrument configuration proposal. ODFs are currently generated ~12 days after observations. Pipeline products are generated 8-25 days after ODFs. The total time for data delivery is expected to be 15-20 days in a few months. 150 ODFs are currently waiting for processing by the SSC. There is currently a 96-7% success rate in reprocessing. SAS v5.3 is due for a public release in Feb 2002. It was delayed to ensure that all the promises from the New Visions conference are incorporated. SAS software is proving to be more robust. SAS is slow, software speed will now be a focus, but the calibration is more important. The calibration is currently at the 5% uncertainty level between MOS, pn and RGS. The ESA data archive will open in Mar 2002. 80-90% of PV/Cal data are now public. Proprietary period will remain 1 year for delayed data. The clock starts running on the day CDs leave the SOC. There remains an issue as to whether the date will be amended if a CD of reprocessed data is delivered later on. There was roughly the same fraction of US proposers in AO-2 as in AO-1. 2500 astronomers proposed in AO-2 (1/4 of the world-wide astronomy community). There has been a delay in the AO-2 review process to make sure necessary money was in in place. The chandra AO-4 deadline is Mar 15, but the XMM review will not be complete by then. FJ will be attempting to overlap AOs with Chandra in the future. There will be 17 TAC panels, with ~1 US panel member each and ~55 proposals per panel. There were numerous complaints about the XRPS system during the AO-2 process. Users suggest that technical evaluations be performed before the body of the proposal is submitted. In order to complete all of the GT targets the start of AO-2 has been put back. The cycle will now run between Nov 2002 to Oct 2003. AO-1 will finish in Nov 2002. XMM-Newton is now funded on a rolling grant. Money has been approved for the next 4 years and the funding is reviewed every two years. 3. Status summary from US Project Scientist. -------------------------------------------- RM: The US are 100% reliant on ESA to deliver data to GOs. Delivery efficiency has gone from poor to excellent over the last year. SAS is now behaving well also. US GOs now have the opportunity to analyze and publish their data for the first time, following significant delays with both data and software. 160 data sets have now been distributed in the US and all GOs are encouraged to publicize their results at conferences and in journals in order to show the value of the observations and the need for continued funding. The senior review deadline is May 10 2002, presentation on Jun 14. It's important to have some papers out by then. USG members were asked to contact people in their fields about publications and abstracts for HEAD and AAS. There were 22 US PI contributions to the New Visions conference. Steve Snowden will collate inputs from the USG and needs inputs by the end of March. The GOF ABC SAS guide and Quicksim software have been received favourably by the community. 4. GOF summary of support work accomplished. -------------------------------------------- SS: The GOF supports: - the AO proposal process - software usage and installation, ABC Guide - XMM science - GO visits XMM compatible top-level FTOOLS will be developed in the near future. All FY00 and FY01 AO-1 GO funds have been distributed. FY02 funds have been received totalling $640K. $2.31M will be availbale in FY02 for AO-2 GOs. Gos will be forward-funding. They will have the option to delay payment if they wish. 5. Statement from GOF scientists. --------------------------------- SS: The GOF has been involved in spacecraft cross-calibration, XMM EPIC, Chandra, ASCA, ROSAT and EPIC background modeling. MS: The OGIP file standard has been altered to incorporate the dispersive nature of the RGS. Users require an FTOOLS script to convert their SAS spectra to the new format and must use XSPEC v11.1 or later. SAS output spectra will conform to the new standard shortly. The RGS calibration is in excellent shape. The instrument team have produced a document that explains the current status of the RGS calibration, and, more importantly, the current status of the calibration within SAS. RGS goals for the near future: i) make available software that will generate rsp files for extended sources. ii) compile a resource web page for plasma physics. IH: The GOF have helped develop OM software to analyze grism data, filter out background contamination and splice OM images together. 6. Concern's of Users' Group. ----------------------------- Should the OM policy be revised, so that the SOC have the option to keep the instrument on when the GO does not require it? An action was taken by the OM team representative and the GOF to pursue definition of an appropriate ``default'' mode that could be used (with no impact on the users' primary science) when OM data are not specifically requested by the GO XMM Archive proposals will be part of the ADP program. ADP funding will be increased to $2M pa. Mission scientists will lobby the European Users' Group to have TACs incorporate feedback on proposals. This would hopefully include a rating and perhaps a multiple choice questionaire. Some GOs expressed concern about not knowing who to contact for help. They should not contact individuals. US mails should go to xmmhelp@olegacy.gsfc.nasa.gov, ESA emails to xmmhelp@xmm.vilspa.esa.es. It was suggested that consideration be given to the adoption of RPS for phase-I submission software. FJ indicated that the XRPS sofware will be remodeled to accommodate both phase I and phase II components, with phase-II based closely on the extant XRPS. GOs would like to see more calibration information in the public domain, and the Project Scientists would take this issue to the full Users' Group meeting in Europe. GOs often receive standard, but incomprehensible, emails from the SOC concerning scheduling. Can this service be improved? This issue would also be taken to the full Users' Group. The question was asked 'what use is the USG?'. The concerns of the US USG are taken to the full Users' Group, of which the US Project Scientist and the Chair of the US group are both members. The US Users' Group also oversees the performance of the US GOF, assists with budget reviews for accepted US GO proposals and helps to prepare the proposal for consideration by the Senior Review panel of the Office of Space Science. Can the XMM CAL be incorporated in caldb? This is not possible because they are formatted differently. 7. Preparations for Senior Review. ---------------------------------- Every 2 years a panel of scientists judge the costing of all space missions (excluding HST and Chandra). The senior review deadline is May 10 2002, presentation on Jun 14. The document takes 1 month to compile. Input is required from the USG by late march. GSFC will assemble contributions from the USG. Budgets are required for GOs, the GOF, instrument teams, mission scientists and E/PO. The document will describe: - what is XMM? - what is XMM capable of? - what has it been doing? XMM was ranked 1-2nd in the last review. UCSB will be in charge of the E/PO portion with IH. Each USG member will be responsible for compiling material on their own fields for the "science impact" section. Send all text to SS. The GOF will send out emails to all GOs asking for contributions, a list of targets to the USG and past examples of proposals to the USG. RG or RM will make the review presentation. Contributions for a first draft should be delivered by the end of March. The responsibilitis of USG members for collating inputs for science sections is as follows: France Cordova - OM science Richard Griffiths - surveys, counts, deep fields Ilana Harrus - compact objects Smita Mathur - AGN Richard Mushotzky - writing/editing overall proposal Frits Paerels - binaries Dave Sanders - galaxies Wilt Sanders - diffuse galactic/extragalactic Pat Slane - SNR Steve Snowden - collation of science Martin Still - CVs Fred Walter - star formation and stars Ann Zabludoff - groups/clusters