ICR-research

Repository for the project from the Institude for Computing in Research --- Analysis of Swift J0243.6+6124

Background

The Swift J0243.6+6124 Xray binary neutron star is currently in outburst, making its Xray emissions and pulses clear enough to determine its current spin frequency. This project aims to analyze changes in spin frequency of when the neutron star is in outburst— the time of its discovery and now— and compare it to changes in brightness. The project includes collecting data from Swift archives, correcting the data from the orbit of the BAT telescope around Earth to its barycenter, and plotting out the results.

Getting Started

Packages

It's recommended to install Anaconda and set up a separate environment for this project. This is where you can install most of the required tools for this project. To do this, copy and paste the following into a new terminal:

• conda create -n {environment name} python
• conda activate {environment name}
• pip install numpy, astropy, scipy, matplotlib, swiftbat, swifttools

BatAnalysis can be installed via https://github.com/parsotat/BatAnalysis. FTOOLS installation instructions can be found here: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/ftools/ftools_menu.html

Barycorr is also used for barycenter correction of the data, so you will need to set up the CALDB calibration system. Instructions can be found here: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/caldb/caldb_remote_access.html

Data

To access the starting Swift data:

wget -q -nH --no-check-certificate --cut-dirs=5 -r -l0 -c -N -np -R 'index*' -erobots=off --retr-symlinks https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/swift/data/obs/2017_11//00059158012/

For additional data when refining freq, do:

python3 swiftJ0246_lightcurve.py

Running the code

To view the plots for the data files in terms of rate or counts as a function of time, do:

python3 plottingTycho_200_200.py

To view plots for the Fourier transform of data and rate v. phase relationship, do:

python3 fouriertransform.py 

To find data on refined frequency via Discrete Fourier Transforms of barycentered data, do:

python3 daybaryfreq.py

then

cat barydayfreq.txt

or use another text editor to view the txt file.

To view the comparison plot between the corrected data and original collected data, do:

python3 freqcomparisonplot.py

To view the change in phase relative to time and see the accuracy of 0.1018 Hz as the spin frequency, do:

python3 segmentdft.py

To view the plots determing the relationship and comparing flux and rate of change in spin frequency, do:

python3 freqvflux.py