Notes taken during the Working Groups (WGs) teleconference, 7 November 2008 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Present: V.Burwitz, M.Guainazzi, F.Haberl, M.Ishida, H.Marshall, P.Plucinski, A.Pollock, S.Sembay 1-2) Status of WGs and goal for the next IACHEC meeting * Effective areas (M.Ishida): in a few weeks Good Time Interval (GTI) files will be circulated for the generation of PKS2155-304 Chandra, Suzaku and XMM-Newton spectra in strictly simultaneous time intervals Current goal is to have a draft of the PKS2155-304 paper ready by the next IACHEC meeting (P.Plucinski): soon new affective area files will be released, based on the analysis of G21.5-0.9. It may be worth to wait for this calibration update to be release before final numbers are put in the paper * Response matrices, energy calibration (H.Marshall): a decreasing trend in the LETG/ACIS versus EPIC flux ratio has been recently discovered by M.Smith. This bring the flux discrepancy below 0.5 keV from 10% (at launch) to 30-40%. Current working hypothesis is that this is due to a still inaccurate contamination long-term trend calibration in Chandra ACIS. The goal for the next IACHEC meeting is to complete (and present) this analysis. It was then discussed whether it may be worth to perform another experiment on other sources (the next observation of PKS2155-304 will be performed only after April 2009). 3C273 would be possible, but it would require short- term coordination between the mission planning team. Alternatively, one could use RXJ1856.6-3754. This target is not observed by Chandra. HM will check whether it could be. * High-resolution (A.Pollock): AP is compiling a complete list of weak emission lines in the Capella HETG spectra. It may be worth exploring via a kind of "logN-logS" analysis how much of the weak apparent continua might be made of lines. The goal is to have this indispensable job completed by the next IACHEC meeting * White Dwarfs (V.Burwitz): most of the analysis work has been done. Although a bit more work on GD153 could be done, basically only two things are missing: a) analysis of the latest Chandra calibration observation; b) estimates for future missions. The next paper (draft by next IACHEC) will focus on comparing physical models. * Isolated neutron star (F.Haberl): analysis of the RXJ1856.6-3784 spectra is being performed. The final run of spectral generation and fitting. So far, no trend has been observed. * Thermal SNR (P.Plucinski): a SPIE paper has been published and posted to "astro-ph". A refereed paper is on going, and is currently waiting for the release of the new Chandra effective areas. Open issues are: a) pile-up correction for Chandra; b) weak Fe/O ratio (AP is looking into that); c) HETG data. * Non-thermal SNR (M.Ishida): currently dormant. Crab spectra for all missions are being collected. The goal for the next IACHEC meeting is to have a preliminary template of the paper 3) News from Working Groups sent after the meeting * Timing: status unknown * Clusters (J.Nevalainen): I have redone the cluster XMM data analysis with SAS 8.0.0 and extended the sample a little bit. I have compared the best-fit temperatures in different bands with the Fe line ratio-based temperatures with PN and MOS, and with the published BeppoSAX MECS results. Larry David has analysed the sample as much as it overlaps with ACIS-S and ACIS-I. I do not yet have his results with the new calibration. Once I get the results, I can finish the comparisons. I am not sure when this will happen. We could include Suzaku data as well, but that might be a separate paper, perhaps lead by my student, who has experience in Suzaku analysis. MG will contact the Chairs of the two WGs to get an update on the status. 4) AOB The next WGs Chair teleconference should touch the following points: a) Agenda of the IACHEC meeting b) Invitation to external people c) Presentation from upcoming missions MG will check that all the contact points for future missions sent after the IACHEC meeting#3 are in the IACHEC mailing list. During the discussion, VB reminded that a Wiki is now available under the IACHEC web pages. VB will send around again the e-mail where he described the way the system can be accessed. WG Chairs are encouraged to use it. It has been suggested that the IACHEC web page could be used as a repository of links to response matrices of old missions. MG will follow-up and make a proposal by the next meeting. Next meeting date/time will be decided via Meet-o-Matic.