Past agenda

Past agenda#

05.11.2025: Walkthrough of NuSTAR data analysis + Basic concepts of spectral fitting (Part I)
- Lecturers: Menglei Zhou & Honghui Liu
- Setting up HEASOFT, calibration data base, dealing with NuSTAR data (spectra and lightcurve), data fitting in XSPEC.
12.11.2025: Walkthrough of NICER data analysis + Basic concepts of spectral fitting (Part II)
- Lecturers: Menglei Zhou & Honghui Liu
- NICER pipelines, background filtering, simulating spectra in XSPEC.
19.11.2025: Timing analysis — from light curves to power spectra
- Lecturers: Menglei Zhou & Honghui Liu
- NICER event file, light curves, Fast Fourier Transformation, power density spectra, quasi-periodic oscillations, root-mean-squared (RMS), phase lag and time lag.
26.11.2025: Polarization analysis — handling IXPE data
- Lecturers: Menglei Zhou & Honghui Liu
- Detection principles, statistics (STOKES parameters), reduction of IXPE data, background treatment, (un-)weighted analysis, PCUBE, XSPEC fitting (POLCONST, POLLIN, etc), MDP99.
03.12.2025: Pulsar timing (Part I)
- Lecturers: Youli Tuo & Menglei Zhou & Honghui Liu
- Barycenter correction, binary correction, pulse search, lightcurve folding (pulse profiles), phase-resolved spectroscopy
10.12.2025: (1) Talk by Tarjar Risstad: Dark matter search with eROSITA data; (2) X-ray reflection spectroscopy
- Lecturers: Honghui Liu & Menglei Zhou

Christmas break until 13.01.2026

14.01.2026: Statistics in X-ray data analysis
- Maximum likelihood estimation, chi-squared and C-stat, confidence intervals, ftest, line detection, AICs, BIC
- Lecturers: Honghui Liu & Menglei Zhou
21.01.2026: Phase-resolved analysis for `heartbeat’ data
- Lecturer: Florian Sanzenbacher
28.01.2026: Talk by Professor Ingyin Zaw (NYU Abu Dhabi)
- PhD, Postdoc and other opportunities at NYU Abu Dhabi
04.02.2026: Constructing table models in XSPEC for returning radiation effects
- Lecturer: Konstantinos Kourmpetis

Semester break until 01.04.2026