A Major Addition to the Number of Sources in the RXTE/ASM Light Curve Data Base
Abstract
The All-Sky Monitor (ASM) on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) NASA X-ray astronomy mission has been used to follow the intensity variations of the few hundred brightest cosmic X-ray sources for more than 14 years. The results are made available to the public in the form of files containing light curves for individual sources or objects that are candidate sources. At present, the results include light curves for nearly 600 such objects, and are frequently used in investigations of the time variations of X-ray binaries and other types of X-ray sources. Certain aspects of the analysis software in present use limit the expansion of the list of candidate sources. For the most part, the limitations are practical rather than fundamental. We propose to revise the ASM data analysis software to enable the production of light curves for a significantly increased number of objects, and to then use it to produce light curves for 1000 additional objects. The additional objects would be selected from catalogs and reports in the literature that have been produced by various high energy astrophysics projects. The new light curves would be publically available from the same web sites that provide access to the currently available light curves and would be a major enhancement of a NASA astrophysics data archive.
- Publication:
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NASA ADAP Proposal
- Pub Date:
- 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010adap.prop...18L