Open Universe for Blazars: a new generation of astronomical products based on 14 years of Swift-XRT data
Journal
Date Issued
2019
Author(s)
P. Giommi
•
C. H. Brandt
•
U. Barres de Almeida
•
A. M. T. Pollock
•
F. Arneodo
•
Y. L. Chang
•
O. Civitarese
•
M. De Angelis
•
V. D'Elia
•
J. Del Rio Vera
•
S. Di Pippo
•
R. Middei
•
A. V. Penacchioni
•
•
R. Ruffini
•
N. Sahakyan
•
S. Turriziani
Abstract
Open Universe for blazars is a set of high-transparency data products for
blazar science, and the tools designed to generate them. Blazar astrophysics is
becoming increasingly data driven, depending on the integration and combined
analysis of large quantities of data from the entire span of observational
astrophysics techniques. The project was therefore chosen as one of the pilot
activities within the United Nations Open Universe Initiative. In this work we
developed a data analysis pipeline called Swift_deepsky, based on the Swift
XRTDAS software and the XIMAGE package, encapsulated into a Docker container.
Swift_deepsky, downloads and reads low-level data, generates higher-level
products, detects X-ray sources and estimates several intensity and spectral
parameters for each detection, thus facilitating the generation of complete and
up-to-date science-ready catalogues from an entire space-mission dataset. The
Docker version of the pipeline and its derived products is publicly available
from the Open Universe Website at openuniverse.asi.it. We present the results
of a detailed X-ray image analysis based on Swift_deepsky on all Swift XRT
observations including a known blazar, carried out during the first 14 years of
operations of the Swift Observatory. The resulting database includes over
27,000 images integrated in different X-ray bands, and a catalogue, called
1OUSXB, that provides intensity and spectral information for 33,396 X-ray
sources, 8,896 of which are single or multiple detections of 2,308 distinct
blazars. All the results can be accessed on-line in a variety of ways: e.g.,
from the Open Universe portal at openuniverse.asi.it, through Virtual
Observatory services, via the VOU-Blazar tool and the SSDC SED builder. One of
the most innovative aspects of this work is that the results can be safely
reproduced and extended by anyone.
Volume
631
Start page
A116
Issn Identifier
0004-6361
Ads BibCode
2019A&A...631A.116G
Rights
open.access
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