Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Observation Simulation Tutorial

This tutorial provides some step-by-step examples of how to simulate Fermi observations using the gtobssim application. For example a Guest Investigator planning a proposal may need to make a realistic assessment of the detection significance achievable within a given time interval or the ability to constrain source model parameters for a given source intensity. More subtle issues may also be explored: e.g. how sensitive a given observation may be to pulsed emission of a given flux and modulation depth, spatially extended emission or pointed versus survey mode observation scenarios.

The gtobssim tool (and related gtorbsim tool) produce Fermi simulated data files. Which can then be analyzed with the Fermitools following the same procedure as with the real data.

This tutorial assumes the user has a spacecraft data file already generated with the gtorbsim tool, or that he or she has obtained a sample spacecraft data file from the FSSC website (step 4). Alternatively, for basic zenith-rocking scenarios, one can be created "on the fly".

Steps:

  1. Download the latest model for the isotropic background.

    To simulate the background you will need to download the necessary files that specify the Galactic interstellar emission and the isotropic component. For Pass 8 this is more complicated than with previous data releases because of the number of data selection options. In all cases the Galactic file is gll_iem_v07.fits For standard analysis using SOURCE class (FRONT+BACK), the isotropic spectral template is iso_P8R3_SOURCE_V3_v1.txt.

  2. Prepare XML source library files

    These are XML files containing the source model definitions used by gtobssim.

  3. Create a list of XML input file names

    Various XML source libraries already exist. In addition to creating custom libraries, you can make sources in these libraries available by including the full paths to the files in this list.

  4. Create a list of sources

    These are the sources to be modeled.

  5. Specify or create a pointing and livetime history file

    You can: use an existing pointing and livetime history file; create one using the gtorbsim tool; or define a pointing strategy and let gtobssim compute one.

  6. Run gtobssim

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1. Download the latest model for the isotropic background

When you use the latest Galactic emission model gll_iem_v07.fits in a likelihood analysis you will want to use a template for the isotropic diffuse emission, which includes the residual cosmic-ray background. For standard analysis you will need to download iso_P8R3_SOURCE_V3_v1.txt. This is valid only for the P8R3_SOURCE_V3 response function and only for data sets with front + back events combined. For isotropic spectral templates for other data selections please see the Background Models page. The file isotropic_allsky.fits is also required. This is simply an image with all pixels set to a value of "1".

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2. Prepare the XML source library files

These files contain the XML definitions of the sources that are used by gtobssim These files by themselves are not valid XML documents, but rather they contain XML "source_library" tags that are compiled in memory into a valid XML document that is then parsed by the software. It should be noted that these files are analogous to, but unfortunately not compatible with gtlike xml source model files.

The following example shows how to define point sources with simple and broken power-law spectra, diffuse sources using FITS image files as a templates in two different ways, and an isotropic diffuse source.

The following xml files can be extracted from this document and edited with a text editor, or created with the model editor tool. Model editor creates models for gtobssim that are also available for gtlike. To use model editor tool, type:

prompt> modeleditor

in the command line. The tool has its own help.

In this example, we specified three source parameters, and incorporate the current Fermi background models.

<source_library title="example_sources">

<source name="example_3C279" flux="0.0348">
<spectrum escale="MeV">
<particle name="gamma">
<power_law emin="20.0" emax="200000." gamma="1.96"/>
</particle>
<celestial_dir ra="193.98" dec="-5.82"/>
</spectrum>
</source>

<source name="example_3C273" flux="0.0196">
<spectrum escale="MeV">
<particle name="gamma">
<power_law emin="20.0" emax="200000." gamma="2.58"/>
</particle>
<celestial_dir ra="187.25" dec="2.17"/>
</spectrum>
</source>

<source name="crab_pulsar" flux="0.154">
<spectrum escale="MeV">
<particle name="gamma">
<power_law emin="20" emax="1000000." gamma="2.19" ebreak="1500" gamma2="4.89"/>
</particle>
<celestial_dir ra="83.57" dec="22.01"/>
</spectrum>
</source>

<source name="IsotropicDiffuse">
<spectrum escale="MeV">
<SpectrumClass name="FileSpectrumMap" params="flux=0.,fitsFile=isotropic_allsky.fits,specFile=iso_P8R3_SOURCE_V3_v1.txt"/>
<use_spectrum frame="galaxy"/>
</spectrum>
</source>

<source name="GalacticDiffuse">
<spectrum escale="MeV">
<SpectrumClass name="MapCube" params="flux=6.508, fitsFile=gll_iem_v07.fits"/>
<use_spectrum frame="galaxy"/>
</spectrum>
</source>

<source name="standard_diffuse_components">
<nestedSource sourceRef="GalacticDiffuse" />
<nestedSource sourceRef="IsotropicDiffuse" />
</source>

</source_library>

For the FileSpectrumMap object setting the "flux" parameter to 0 will integrate the specFile assuming it has two columns of energy in MeV and dN/dE/dt/dA in units of photons/m2/s/MeV, and use that integral as the flux. For the MapCube it is necessarily to explicitly give the flux. In this example, the flux is set to the integral of the Galactic Diffuse model map cube.

The name of the xml file should have the "xml" extension. Other source class examples can be found in the Sources available to gtobssim section.

3. Create a list of XML input file names

When gtobssim is run, a list of XML input file names may be provided. This list is an ascii file giving full or relative paths to the XML files containing the source definitions. If this list is omitted (by entering "none"), then the following XML files are used by default:

$(FERMI_DIR)/xml/fermi/observationSim/3EG_catalog_20-1e6MeV.xml
$(FERMI_DIR)/xml/fermi/observationSim/obsSim_source_library.xml
$(FERMI_DIR)/xml/fermi/GRBobs/GRB_user_library.xml

If there is only one XML file, then the name of that file may be given rather than the ascii list.

4. Create a list of sources

This is an ascii file containing a list of the sources that are to be modeled. For example, assuming the above source_library is used, then to model 3C 279, 3C 273, and the interstellar and extragalactic diffuse components, this file source_names.txt would contain

standard_diffuse_components
example_3C279
example_3C273
#crab_pulsar

Lines beginning with "#" are treated as comments.

5. Provide a pointing and livetime history file

One has the option of providing a pointing and livetime history file to gtobssim or letting gtorbsim calculate the spacecraft orbit and attitude. The pointing and livetime history file may be a FITS file with this format, or it may be an ascii file with a format defined by this code.

6. Run gtobssim

Assuming the above XML file is example_library.xml and that the list of sources is called source_names.dat, one can run gtobssim like this (for a one day long simulation):

prompt> gtobssim
File of flux-style source definitions[] example_library.xml
File containing list of source names[] source_names.txt
Pointing history file[] none
Prefix for output files[] test
Simulation time (seconds)[] 86400
Simulation start time (seconds wrt MET 0) INDEF
Apply acceptance cone?[] no
Response functions[] P8R3_SOURCE_V3
Random number seed[] 293049
added source "standard_diffuse_components"
added source "example_3C279"
added source "example_3C273"
Generating events for a simulation time of 86400 seconds....
Done.
prompt>

Note that the startdate parameter has been set to 2009-01-20. Since the photon arrival times are referred to the mission start date of 2001-01-01 00:00:00, the earliest possible photon arrival time in the resulting events file would be 254102400 MET seconds. In the example no spacecraft data file was entered in "Pointing history file". In this case the spacecraft data file is generated directly by gtobssim and is named: test_scData_0000.fits. The event file is named in this case: test_events_0000.fits. The map that can be created using gtbin could be downloaded from here.

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Last updated by: N. Mirabal 10/04/2018