THE SWIFT/BAT HARD X-RAY TRANSIENT MONITOR
- Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology (CRESST) and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- INAF, Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Via U. La Malfa 153, I-90146 Palermo (Italy)
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411 (United States)
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory, B244, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Mathematics, College of Science and Engineering, Aoyama Gakuin University, 5-10-1 Fuchinobe, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara-shi, Kanagawa 252-5258 (Japan)
- Department of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)
The Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) hard X-ray transient monitor provides near real-time coverage of the X-ray sky in the energy range 15-50 keV. The BAT observes 88% of the sky each day with a detection sensitivity of 5.3 mCrab for a full-day observation and a time resolution as fine as 64 s. The three main purposes of the monitor are (1) the discovery of new transient X-ray sources, (2) the detection of outbursts or other changes in the flux of known X-ray sources, and (3) the generation of light curves of more than 900 sources spanning over eight years. The primary interface for the BAT transient monitor is a public Web site. Between 2005 February 12 and 2013 April 30, 245 sources have been detected in the monitor, 146 of them persistent and 99 detected only in outburst. Among these sources, 17 were previously unknown and were discovered in the transient monitor. In this paper, we discuss the methodology and the data processing and filtering for the BAT transient monitor and review its sensitivity and exposure. We provide a summary of the source detections and classify them according to the variability of their light curves. Finally, we review all new BAT monitor discoveries. For the new sources that are previously unpublished, we present basic data analysis and interpretations.
- OSTI ID:
- 22273262
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series, Vol. 209, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0067-0049
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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