Notes on the 9th IACHEC Working Groups teleconference 25-Jan-2010, WebEx Participants: C.Grant (CG), M.Guainazzi(MG), H.Marshall (HM), L.Natalucci (LN), J.Nevalainen (JN), P.Plucinsky (PP), A.Pollock (AP; part-time) Apologies: V.Burwitz (VB), M.Tsujimoto (MT) 1) Status of WG activities and goals for the 6th IACHEC meeting High-resolution WG ------------------ It is currently in a "moribund" state due more pressing calibration tasks. It is unfortunately unlikely that substantial work can be done by the 6th IACHEC, unless the work is more thoroughly shared among the WG members. HM offers to coordinate the US side. A post-doc working with R.Smith (Adam Foster) could provide a significant contribution. AP will organise a teleconference of the WG members by next week to try and revive the WG. PP will contact A.Foster to probe his availability. CCD --- Not much work has been done so far. However, the goal to have a Wiki page set-up by the 6th IACHEC is still achievable. L.David and MG proposes that part of the WG meeting in Frascati is devoted to a discussion on calibration issue with "Fast Modes" (Timing/Burst in EPIC, continuous clocking in ACIS etc. etc.) to see whether there is something we can learn from our common experience. Cluster ------- Once the paper has been accepted, the WG has moved to the phase of making public to the community any updates of the cross-calibration results stemming from improvements in the calibration of the instruments involved. For this purpose the IACHEC Wiki system installed on the MIT server will be used. The amount of files is large (~1000) due to the sample size. However, it is deemed possible to upload the whole sample provided the files are well organised by source, instrument ... and that they do not exceed any quota (JN to check with E.Miller). The next update of the cross-calibration results should follow the SASv11.0 release, and will include the refinement of the pn-redistribution and the new MOS redistribution Other ongoing activities: * a student is extending the paper study to Suzaku spectra. The first results of this study will be presented at the 6th IACHEC. We hope that including a third instrument will help to understand the origin of the discrepancy between ACIS and EPIC in the soft band * The original sample should be extended to more objects. A future paper will also discuss in more details the usage of the FeXXV/FeXXVI diagnostics Effective area -------------- * A draft paper on the PKS2155-304 has been circulated by Ishida-san. It still required a couple of iterations before it can be submitted * There has been no progress on the blazar sample paper. However, there is no major calibration showstopper preventing its finalisation. It is agreed that the sample will be reanalysed with SASv11 (to be released around mid- February), which will include a improved algorithm for the calculation of the MOS redistribution, and after that the paper will be wrapped up. The goal is to reach a complete draft by the 6th IACHEC meeting, which can be finalised during the meeting Non-thermal SNR --------------- After the publication of the G21.5-0.9 paper, the main activity of the WG is concentrated in the Crab. Two key speakers at the 6th IACHEC will deal with the Crab, discussing observations and theoretical aspects. The Crab has been subject of intense discussion in the last few months due to the discovery of its high-energy long-term variability as well as of short-term flares form the intermittent jet. Despite these discoveries, the source has still a very important potential for cross-calibration because the variability is mild (~5% on years timescales). The original plan to have a first complete draft of the paper in December 2010 has been delayed. Still work is ongoing, spectra from the IBIS, SPI and BAT instruments are available, EPIC-pn (Burst Mode) are ready to be delivered. Chandra grating spectra are still missing, they are rather hard to extract to the complex spatial distribution of the Crab emission, M.Weisskopf is working on them. RGS spectra are also missing. LN will investigate with AP on why. The plan is to have a first paper draft by the end of March, and to finalise the paper after a discussion at the 6th IACHEC. LN will replace MT as Chair of this WG for the next months, due to the heavy workload that MT is experiencing due to the preparation work for Astro-H. Thermal SNR ----------- The WG is working on expanding the original SPIE paper to an A&A paper. PP will organise a teleconf with the WG members to check the calibration status. The goal is to reach a paper in a good shape by the 6th IACHEC. After the paper on 1E0102-72 is submitted, the next task of the WG would be N132D. It is spectrally more complicated than 1E0102-72 due to the rich iron emission. Some work on a phenomenological model of the RGS spectra has been done at the XMM-Newton SOC by a student (M. de Ovelar). PP will contact AP. White dwarf ----------- The analysis of the most recent observations of G153 is the main task. The goal is to finalise the paper after the 6th IACHEC. This will represent the 3rd WD standard candle definition paper. 2) 6th IACHEC logistics * Requests for invitation letters shall be addressed to LN * Once the availability of financial support for two gratuities at Villa Grazioli is confirmed, LN will contact V.Kashyap to offer him one of them as "key speaker". The second one remains for the time being on hold * The web page needs to be updated to include: - cancellation policy - price for accompanying persons - LOC * Any recreational activities will be decided once we know how many participants we have 3) AOB MG proposes that one of the goals of the next meeting is discussing on how to go from the "paper production" to the "cross-calibration results maintenance and publication" phase. We may have a dedicated ~1 hour plenary session on this topic, if time permits.