pcaprepfile1 - Prepare deadtime quantities for Standard1 file
pcaprepfile1 infile hkfiles dtfile ...
pcaprepfile1 does standard preparation activities for one PCA Standard1 data file. It represents the best practices recommended by the RXTE PCA team for preparing Standard1 for scientific analysis.
The prerequisites for this tool are:
* one Standard1 file ('infile') * list of RXTE housekeeping files ('hkfiles')
When complete, pcaprepfile1 will produce:
* Standard1 file with dead-time quantities ('dtfile')
This file parallels the operation of pcaprepfile2. However, unlike that task, pcaprepfile1 does not estimate background from a Standard1 file since that is not possible. It simply computes dead-time realted quantities.
There are several settings that the user can alter, but the user is recommended to use the defaults except with good reason. The defaults will compute dead-time related quantities for each PCU and filter out known times of bad data (see pcadeadcalc1).
After running this tool, the 'dtfile' file is suitable for use with pcaextlc1 (recommended).
Calculating dead-time quantities is optional. If dtfile='NONE' then they are not computed. However, the PCA team recommends to produce the dead-time calculations, and to use the dead-time quantity files for all subsequent analysis. (i.e. ignore the original Standard1 file, and use the dtfile instead).
# Create list of PCA housekeeping files ls FH5* > hkfiles_files.lis # Run on FS4a_file.gz pcaprepfile1 infile=FS46_file3.gz \ hkfiles=@hkfiles_files.lis \ dtfile=FS46_file3_DT # Outputs are FS46_file3_DT
PCA Standard1 mode does not contain all the quantities to compute exact dead time or background estimates. Instead, some heuristic estimates are required. This may lead to some small errors in background subtraction or dead-time correction.
The user is strongly recommended to use an updated RXTE Calibration database (CALDB), and to set breakfile=CALDB, modelfile=CALDB, saahfile=CALDB.
The user is strongly recommended to compute the files with dead-time quantities and use those for downstream processing.
Please report problems to xtehelp@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov.
pcadeadcalc1, pcaprepobs1