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- Bellm, Eric C., et al.
(author)
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The Zwicky Transient Facility : System Overview, Performance, and First Results
- 2019
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In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. - : IOP Publishing. - 0004-6280 .- 1538-3873. ; 131:995
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is a new optical time-domain survey that uses the Palomar 48 inch Schmidt telescope. A custom-built wide-field camera provides a 47 deg(2) field of view and 8 s readout time, yielding more than an order of magnitude improvement in survey speed relative to its predecessor survey, the Palomar Transient Factory. We describe the design and implementation of the camera and observing system. The ZTF data system at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center provides near-real-time reduction to identify moving and varying objects. We outline the analysis pipelines, data products, and associated archive. Finally, we present on-sky performance analysis and first scientific results from commissioning and the early survey. ZTF's public alert stream will serve as a useful precursor for that of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.
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2. |
- Yamada, Shinya, et al.
(author)
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Poisson vs. Gaussian statistics for sparse X-ray data : Application to the soft X-ray spectrometer
- 2019
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In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. - : OXFORD UNIV PRESS. - 0004-6264 .- 2053-051X. ; 71:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Reliable results when fitting X-ray data require proper consideration of the statistics involved. We probe the impact of Gaussian versus Poisson statistics at low count levels using both the standard chi(2) method and maximum likelihood based on Poisson studied and quantified through simulated spectra with known properties. We then test the results through analysis of Mn K alpha calibration data taken with the flight spare microcalorimeter for the Hitomi soft X-ray spectrometer. Through comparison with simulations, our results show that the chi(2) method tends to give overly optimistic estimates of the detector energy resolution, in particular when there are few counts. Given an energy resolution of similar to 5eV and a line with about 100 photons, the line width becomes similar to 10% lower in the chi(2) method than in Poisson statistics. This is a consequence of the uncertainties being dominated by counting statistics, and therefore highlights the need to choose the appropriate fit statistic.
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