Useful material for projects

This page is used to record the useful links, commands and softwares that I found can be very helpful for doing projects.

Links

Tools

• The Galactic nH calculator: engage!
• RA DEC flexible converter: click me
• Online tool for coordinate transformation: Ned site
• MJD converter: here it is
• Date/time conversion: xTime
• Plotting with PLT: here, Label
• The ftool ftgrouppha: click
• Xselect: Introduction, Guide
• Spearman’s Critical Correlation Calculator: 1, Calculator, Pearson and Spearman, python module.
• A Mission Count Rate Simulator: WebPIMMS.
• Online pipeline for processing Swift XRT data: link
• The interactive analysis interface for Swift: link

Data base

• Atomic database for astrophysicists: ATOMDB
• NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED): https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/
• SIMBAD: http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-fid

Catalog

• Swift Hard X-ray Survey: Let’s go
• Swift/BAT Hard X-ray Transient Monitor: link
• The Swift-XRT Point Source catalog: 2SXPS
• The black hole XRB monitor: link

Website

• Homepage of: Cosimo Bambi
• The Cambridge group: Here
• Heasarc FTP: go
• Search for observations: browse

Workshop

• X-ray spectral fitting methods workshop: here
• The 2020 AtomDB workshop: link
• KouShare: https://www.koushare.com/video/videosearch

Software

• The CLOUDY homepage: CLOUDY
• XSTAR: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xstar/xstar.html
• Bayesian X-ray Analysis: BXA
• Code for HXMT data treatment (by Prof. Long Ji): http://code.ihep.ac.cn/jldirac/insight-hxmt-code-collection/-/tree/master
• Stingray, a very useful python package for X-ray timing analysis and treatment of lightcurve data.
  • Website: https://docs.stingray.science/en/v1.1.2.2/
  • Github: https://github.com/StingraySoftware/stingray

Tutorials

• How to install calibration: click

Others

• X-ray transition energies: go
• The chi-square table: chi
• Uncertainty transformation: click, theory

References

Commands

• To visualize the light curve

lcurve nser=1 cfile1=rate.fits window="-" dtnb=50 nbint=3000 outfile="lc" plot=yes plotdev="/xs"

• To group data with grppha

grppha source_spectrum.fits pn_25.grp comm= "chkey RESPFILE pn.rmf & chkey ANCRFILE pn.arf & chkey BACKFILE back_spectrum.fits & group min 25 & exit"

• To download data with FTP from nasa’s archive

wget -q -nH --no-check-certificate --cut-dirs=3 -r -l0 -c -N -np -R 'index*' -erobots=off --retr-symlinks https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/caldb/data/suzaku/

• To use optimal binning strategy with ftool ftgrouppha(usage)

ftgrouppha infile=MAXIJ1535_LE_chkey.pha backfile=MAXIJ1535_LE_bkg.pha outfile=MAXIJ1535_LE_opt.pha grouptype=opt respfile=MAXIJ1535_LE.rsp clobber=yes