MWL campaign on Mrk 501 (March-July 2009):
Roadmap for the data analysis, interpretation and publication
:
:
:
:
Now that the observations have been already performed, we need to work towards the analysis and the interpretation of those observations. This was a long campaign with a very good multi-frequency coverage; we collected an excellent data set which will be the prime matter to address several topics related to the particle accleration and energy radiation in Mrk501 (and High Peak BL Lacs in general). Naturally, most of those studies will turn into scientific publications.
The steps we want to undertake are 1) data reduction and submission, 2) Interpretation of the reduced data and 3) Publication. In the paragraphs below we expand somewhat those steps:
1 - Data reduction and submission
The different groups will analyze the data from the observations, and will produce files with the format described in the Data format web page. Note that standarizing the format for all the reduced data from the different instruments has several advantages:
1) We facilitate the combined analysis of data sets coming from different instruments.
2) We make sure that the files contain all the relevant information necessary for the proper understanding of the data reduction and results.
3) We make sure that different versions of the data reduction (due to improvements or bug corrections) are properly tagged, which will avoid confusion at the time of interpreting the results.
The only disadvantage is the time that the individual analyzers need to spend to make a script/program that converts their reduced data into the specified data format. Note however that this a one-time job; once done (at the beginning), then it is just a matter of running such script/program every time a new analysis is done. I have some experience doing scripts to automatize procedures; I can offer help to those who might need it.
The collaborations or proposal PIs are the responsibles for the data reduction and the reliability (best efforts) of the results. Yet constructive feedback from the other groups is always encouraged; past experience shows that critic evaluation of the results by other groups can point to bugs that later on can be corrected, hence improving the reliability of the results.
The submitted data will be made accessible to the participants of the MW campaign through the Data Access web page.
1.1 - Reduction of data for publication #1 (see below)
As a first approach, and given the fact that Mrk501 did not show long periods of very high activity during the campaign, the participants should work towards producing a single spectrum with all their single instrument data. In this way we will construct an average (during the MW campaign) SED that will nicely cover energies from radio to TeV. Additional results (like light curves on various time scales and/or energy ranges, spectra for various time windows...) are welcome; but they will NOT be used in publication #1.
The DEADLINE for submission of the MW data that will be used in publication #1 is Aug19th
2 - Interpretation of the reduced data
All groups who participated in the campaign and agree (sign) the Data Policy agreement will have access to all the observational (reduced) data from this campaign, and thus will be able to participate (if they wished) in the physical interpretation of the overall data set. The data will be accessible through the Data Access web page.
We may organize several virtual (EVO) meetings to discuss the results from the different people/groups contributing to the interpretation of the data. The access to the EVO meetings is restricted; the password is the same used for the protected web pages containing the reduced data. The reports (pdf/ppt) from these meetings will be archived and made available to all the participants.
3 - Publication of the results
The data set we collected is large and very complete in terms of energy coverage, and hence we intend to produce several publications with it. I envision (at the very least) the following 3 publications. They are sorted according to the required timescale to be performed (which is dominated by the data reduction and interpretation). In this list, #1 is the easiest/quickest one and #3 the most lengthy one:
1)Fermi view of Mrk501 during ~1 year, with the Overall SED (radio to TeV) during the 4+ months long MW campaign.
2)Multi-frequency variability from Mrk501 observed during the 4+ months long campaign
3)Time evolution of the spectral energy distribution of Mrk501 during the 4+ months long campaign
Ideas for additional publications might show up while working on the previous ones
The author list in these publications will be the list of people who bring data which are used in the MWL publication, as well as people contributing to the physical interpretation of the results. Participants bringing data that are not used in the publication, will not be part of the author list.
Campaign announcement and development
Broad band observations performed during the campaign
Quick and dirty analysis of some of the data taken during the campaign