Transcript Project Constellation Development Planning Task Team

Ten Years of Swift
John Nousek,
Penn State University
Neil Gehrels, Scott Barthelmy (GSFC) & Jamie Kennea (PSU)
International Workshop on Astronomical X-ray Optics
Prague, Czech Republic
11 December 2014
Talk Overview
Ten years of success
***
Swift mission
operations
***
New Swift science as
‘Time Domain
Observatory’
***
New Swift
opportunities
2
Swift – The World's GRB Factory
 GRBs
BAT
UVOT
 >900 GRBs with arcsec positions
 Primary GRB mission into the future
 Non-GRBs
 >1000 TOOs per year
XRT
 AGN, SNe, novae, CVs, LMXBs, stars, comets, ...
 First sensitive hard X-ray all sky survey
 GI program
 > 4 oversubscription, $1.2M, 5Ms time per year
3
MOC Facility
Located in State College, PA
~ 4 km. from Penn State campus
Flight Operations Team (FOT)
– responsible for observatory
Health & Safety
Science Operations Team
(SOT)
- responsible for scientific
operation of Swift
New facility from 26 Aug 2014
Has continuously operated
Swift successfully from L+80
minutes to now!
Swift Observatory Status
Swift meets or exceeds all Level 1 requirements !

Observatory Science Up-time: 98.3%


Ground Station Status: Nominal





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Orbital life expected to >2026, no observatory or instrument limits known
Flight Operations Team Response: Excellent
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ACS: executed 278992 slews, > 99% within 3’ accuracy
All systems functioning properly, except for TARA 3 degradation
Observatory Lifetime: Above prediction

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Malindi 29809 passes since Launch, 98.4% successful
USN 2843 passes since Launch, 95.3% successful
GN (WPS, AGO, SA2, WS1, SI1) 6671 passes since July 15th 2010, 99.1% successful
TDRSS DAS currently providing 99.3% success rate
Observatory Status: Nominal
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Except for rare spacecraft or instrument down-time and SAA passage, Swift collects data
continuously
On average, there was an FOT after hours response once every four days
Science Operations Team Response: Excellent
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SOT has prepared observing schedules every day with only two SOT induced errors
SOT/BA team has responded to every GRB with prompt (typical < 1 hour) data analysis
and preparation of GCN circulars, ATELs, etc for > 2000 events
Statistics as of 31 Oct 2014 – M. Hilliard
"Looks like
another friendly
Senior Review
panel."
Swift Game-Changing Discoveries
 2005: Short burst mystery solution. NS-NS mergers
 2005: Flares & bright afterglows in GRBs
 2008: Supernova shock breakout from Type Ib SN
 2008: Naked-eye GRB from reverse shock in jet
 2009: Discovery of GRBs at z>8
 2010: Galaxy mergers in hosts of absorbed AGN
 2011: Tidal disruption flare of star eaten by BH
 2012: SFR and metallicity evolution to z>5
 2012: Discovery of very young (2500 year old) SNR
 2012; Discovery of ultra-long class of GRB
October 29, 2009
"Extraordinarily violent
explosion that ended the life
of a distant star."
April 16, 2011
"Unusual celestial event was
black hole swallowing a
star."
 2013: Anti-glitch in magnetar 1E 2259+586
July 19, 2013
 2013: Evidence for kilonova/macronova in a short GRB
"Origin of gold found in rare
neutron-star collisions."
 2014: Evidence for two UV color classes in SNe Ia
Yearly breakthroughs with Swift
BAT Trigger
XRT "Trigger"
TOOs
Swift & Transients
BH Transient & X-ray Nova
Stellar Superflare
TOOs per year
Numbers of Swift TOOs per year
1,500
Number of TOOs
32
181
1,000
0
849
0
34
887
883
168
824
844
2013
2014
0
651
500
0
0
0
0
0
88
1
2004
2005
0
426
285
161
2006
2007
2008
2009
Year
2010
2011
2012
DG CVn Large Stellar Flare
DG CVn - April 23, 2014
 Large X-ray "super-flare"
 Brighter than star
luminosity
 10,000x largest solar flare
 Young star at 18 pc
previous events: EV Lac, II Peg
Power source:
B field reconnection
Drake, Osten, Page, Oats +
LMXB Superburst
SAX J1712.6-3739
4U 1850-08
27-Sept-2011
10-Mar-2014
SAX J1712.6-3739
XRT Rate (counts / s)
 Large thermonuclear burn
 Carbon burning of XRB
ashes
 Factor 1000 longer and less

frequent than XRBs
 Discovered by RXTE
 BAT fluence trigger
Time Since BAT Trigger (s)
in't Zand, Strohmayer,
Power source:
Nuclear burning
Nova Outbursts
Thermonuclear detonation of accumulated accretion on
white dwarf
- >30 novae observed
- keV emission from shocked ejecta
- Super-Soft emission from WD surface
- Extensive observations of RS Oph 2006
(~400 ksec)
- Earth mass ejected at ~4000 km/s into
wind of companion Red Giant
Power source:
Nuclear burning
Osborne+ '11
1.6 kpc
RS Oph
SN 2008D Shock Breakout
9 Jan 2008
Soderberg+ 08
XRT narrow-field monitoring of SN 2007y
Luminous X-ray outburst from SN 2008D
Shock breakout. May occur for all SNe
Power source:
Gravity + E&M
Sgr A* Flares
Daily XRT monitoring of GC
6 flares seen from Sgr A*
+ 10 weak candidate flares
Sgr A* is not dormant
LX ~ 1033 erg/s
~ 1 billionth Eddington
Degenaar+ 13
Power source:
Gravity
Swift Transient - Sw J1644+57
Highly erratic g-ray and X-ray light curve, March 28, 2011
Like a GRB, but lasting 2 days instead of 20 second
Tidal disruption event beamed at us
E ~ 1051 ergs
MBH = 106 – 107 Msolar
Swift Light Curve
HST
Image
t-4/3
2 days
Center of galaxy at z=0.35
Bloom+, Burrows+, Levan+ ... 11
Short GRB
Short vs Long GRBs
GRB 050724 - Swift
elliptical host
GRB 020903 - SAX
SF dwarf host
In SF
galaxies
In non-SF
and SF galaxies
No SNe detected
Long GRB
Chandra
GRB
XRT
Possible merger
model
Accompanied by
SNe
Collapsar model
well supported
BH
Short GRB Summary
Similar to LGRBs:
- extragalactic
- occur in distant galaxies
- collimated jet outflows
- produced by gravitational
collapse, probably to BHs
Dissimilar to LGRBs
- not accompanied by SN
(but maybe kilonova)
- not concentrated in SR regions
- lower redshift
- weaker afterglows
Long GRBs Seen to High z
z
Look-Back
Time (Gyr)
9.4
8.2
~8
7.5
6.7
6.3
6.2
5.6
5.3
5.11
13.1
13.0
13.0
13.0
12.8
12.8
12.8
12.6
12.6
12.5
HST image
GRB
090429B
090423
120923A
100905A
080813
050904
120521C
060927
050814
060522
Optical
Brightness
K = 19
K = 20
H ~ 19
K = 19
J = 18
I = 16
K = 18
R = 21
XRT Lightcurve
183 Crab
Swift Science
Supernova TOO program
Magnetars
BAT survey
AGN monitoring – NGC 5548
Blazar campaigns
Comets / asteroids
ULXs
UVOT galaxy surveys
BH / NS outbursts
Joint observations
(NuSTAR, Fermi, MAXI, INTEGRAL, iPTF,
Kepler, ACTs, n experiments, LIGO/Virgo)
New Science Themes
•
Towards a “Smoking Gun” Short Burst Progenitor:
•
Probing the Epoch of Reionization:
•
Use new NIR spectrometers to study z>7 GRBs
Supernovae and Cosmology:
•
Coordinate observations with aLIGO/Virgo
Confirm r-process “kilonovae”
Construct the first large sample of UV light
curves for SNe Ia
Use Swift data to improve SNe Ia standardization
Serendipitous Time-Domain Discoveries:
-
Increase the likelihood of unanticipated discoveries
through new mission initiatives and partnerships
with wide-field optical and radio transient surveys