Calibration of the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array
Abstract
We present the calibration and background model for the Proportional Counter Array (PCA) aboard the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The energy calibration is systematics limited below 10 keV with deviations from a power-law fit to the Crab nebula plus pulsar less than 1%. Unmodelled variations in the instrument background amount to less than 2% of the observed background below 10 keV and less than 1% between 10 and 20 keV. Individual photon arrival times are accurate to 4.4 micro-seconds at all times during the mission and to 2.5 micro-seconds after 29 April 1997. The peak pointing direction of the five collimators is known to a precision of a few arc-seconds
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0511531,
title = {Calibration of the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array},
author = {K. Jahoda and C. B. Markwardt and Y. Radeva and A. Rots and M. J. Stark and J. H. Swank and T. E. Strohmayer and W. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0511531},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
77 pages, 34 figures. accepted by Ap J Supplement for April 2006 issue. This paper and additional calibration information are available from http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/xrays/programs/rxte/pca/ pcapage.html. Revised version contains minor changes to match accepted version