Auxiliary Data Files for use with yt’s Photon Simulator

Included in the xray_data package are a number of files that you may find useful when working with yt’s X-ray photon_simulator analysis module. They have been tested to give spectral fitting results consistent with input parameters.

Spectral Model Tables

• tbabs_table.h5:

  Tabulated values of the galactic absorption cross-section in HDF5 format, generated from the routines at http://pulsar.sternwarte.uni-erlangen.de/wilms/research/tbabs/

ARFs and RMFs

We have tested the following ARFs and RMFs with the photon simulator. These can be used to generate a very simplified representation of an X-ray observation, using a uniform, on-axis response. For more accurate models of X-ray observations we suggest using MARX or SIMX (detailed below).

• Chandra: chandra_ACIS-S3_onaxis_arf.fits, chandra_ACIS-S3_onaxis_rmf.fits

  Generated from the CIAO tools, on-axis on the ACIS-S3 chip.

• XMM-Newton: pn-med.arf, pn-med.rmf

  EPIC pn CCDs (medium filter), taken from SIMX

• Astro-H: sxt-s_100208_ts02um_intall.arf, ah_sxs_7ev_basefilt_20090216.rmf

  SXT-S+SXS responses taken from http://astro-h.isas.jaxa.jp/researchers/sim/response.html

• NuSTAR: nustarA.arf, nustarA.rmf

  Averaged responses for NuSTAR telescope A generated by Dan Wik (NASA/GSFC)

Other Useful Things Not Included Here

• AtomDB: http://www.atomdb.org

  FITS table data for emission lines and continuum emission. Must have it installed to use the TableApecModel spectral model.

• PyXspec: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xanadu/xspec/python/html/

  Python interface to the XSPEC spectral-fitting program. Two of the spectral models for the photon simulator use it.

• MARX: https://space.mit.edu/ASC/MARX/

  Detailed ray-trace simulations of Chandra.

• SIMX: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/simx/

  Simulates a photon-counting detector’s response to an input source, including a simplified models of telescopes.