TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The GCN system has been modified to incorporate the distribution of a new type of Notice
that contains the results of SIMBAD and NED searches
on positions of GRBs reported by other missions.
Whenever one of the Mission-Instrument GRB Position notices is distributed,
a search is made of the SIMBAD and NED databases.
The radius of that search is dependant upon the source of the position
(eg. 10 arcmin for Swift-BAT positions and 1 arcmin for Swift-XRT Positions).
Only missions with small error circles/boxes will have an associated SIMBAD_NED Notice,
because the search results on a large error circle would not be scientifically useful.
Like all the other sources of GRB information within the GCN system,
users can elect to receive (or not) this SIMBAD-NED Notice type.
The notice contains:
the Type of Notice that originated the search,
the Trigger Number (or other identifying designation),
and the RA,Dec location of the burst in the originating notice.
Then come two lists: the SIMBAD search results and the NED search results.
A sample of the E-mail format notice is listed below.
Originating Notice Types and Search Radii
The table below contains the various GRB Position Notice Types
that can originate a SIMBAD-NED search.
The search radius of the searches is related to the uncertainty
in the location of the originating notice type.
BASED ON THE NOTICE TYPE SEARCH RADIUS [arcmin] INTEGRAL Wakeup 10 INTEGRAL Refined 10 INTEGRAL Offline 10 Swift-BAT Position 10 Swift-XRT Position 1 Swift-BAT SubThreshold Position 10 Swift-BAT Slew Position 10 SuperAGILE Wakeup Position 10 SuperAGILE Ground Position 10 SuperAGILE Refined Position 10 FERMI-LAT Initial Position 20 FERMI-LAT Update Position 20 FERMI-LAT Diagnostic Position (???) 20 FERMI-LAT Reference Position 20 FERMI-LAT Ground_Trigger Position 20 RXTE ASM GRB Position 20 RXTE PCA GRB Position 20 IPN Position 20 GRB_COUNTERPART 10 MILAGRO 10 SNEWS 10 Note that: 1) The FERMI-GBM does not initiate a SIMBAD_NED Notice, because the error radius is too large. 2) The Swift-UVOT_Position Notice does not initiate a SIMBAD_NED Notice, because for every UVOT_POS there is always an XRT_POS (which initiates its own SIMBAD_NED Notice). 3) None of the mission-based Test Notices initiate SIMBAD_NED Notices, because they would not have much scientific utility. 4) None of the mission-based Pointing_Dir Notices initiate SIMBAD_NED Notices, because they would not have much scientific utility.
The sequence of activities for a typical burst follows:
1) One of the Notice types in the above table is generated and distributed.
2) Search requests are made to the SIMBAD and NED databases.
3) The results of those searches are received back to GCN. (Delay is about 20 sec)
4) They are reformated into a more compact and GCN-like format.
5) The enable/disable flags of each entry in the sites.cfg file
is tested to see if that site is enabled for the originating notice type and this SIMBAD-NED type;
and if so, then the SIMBAD-NED notice is distributed to that site (full-format email sites only).
This is available ONLY in the full-format email notice.
It is NOT available in the pager/cellphone formats,
because the content is too large for those small formats.
It is NOT available in socket packets,
because the variable content nature of this notice does not lend itself
to the fixed-format type of the socket packets.
Sites can elect to receive this SIMBAD-NED Notice type.
Unlike the other GCN Notices which are standalone, this one is "paired" with
already existing Notice types. That is (for example): if you have
the Swift-BAT Position type enabled but not the XRT Position type,
and you have the SIMBAD-NED type enabled, then you will get
the SIMBAD-NED Notice whenever a Swift-BAT Notice is distributed,
but you will not get one when a Swift-XRT_Position Notice is distributed.
This contents of this notice can be used to search for possible associations.
For further information on this, please contact
Scott Barthelmy (for GCN issues),
or see the
SIMBAD,
NED,
and
these GCN web pages.
Two examples of the SIMBAD-NED Notice type (e-mail format) is shown below.
Note that for the XRT_Pos-based search, there were no objects in the NED search.
For the small radii searchs, the null result is common.
The "/////" divider bars are NOT part of the messages.
/////////////////////////SIMBAD-NED e-mail format/////////////////////// TITLE: GCN/SIMBAD_NED NOTICE NOTICE_DATE: Sat Jun 14 16:22:57 UTC 2008 NOTICE_TYPE: Swift-BAT Position search TRIGGER_NUM: 303105 RA: 231.107 (J2000) DEC: -22.752 (J2000) SIMBAD search for BAT_RA,Dec=231.107,-22.752,dist=10.0arcmin Num RA Dec Name Type Num_Pub Distance 1 231.14750000 -22.74152778 GRB 080212 gB 17 2.33 2 231.14750000 -22.74152778 GRB 080212 gB 17 2.33 3 231.04723042 -22.72401389 HD 136941 IR 0 3.71 4 231.04166667 -22.77972222 WISH B1521.2-2236 Rad 0 3.98 5 231.20562500 -22.76602778 SN 2002dh SN* 3 5.52 6 231.20654167 -22.76408333 [WAN2002g] J152449.57-224550.7 G 1 5.56 7 231.20290833 -22.78028056 1RXS J152448.7-224649 X 0 5.57 8 230.97500000 -22.66666667 OHIO R -235 Rad 1 8.92 9 231.26023667 -22.69627250 BD-22 3952 IR 0 9.12 10 231.09408083 -22.60014972 TYC 6763-373-1 IR 0 9.14 11 231.27501042 -22.74995528 TYC 6763-116-1 IR 0 9.30 NED search for BAT_RA,Dec=231.107,-22.752,dist=10.0arcmin Num RA Dec Name Type Distance 1 231.042500 -22.774528 NVSS J152410-224628 , RadioS 3.80 2 231.183917 -22.779194 2MASX J15244414-2246453 , IrS 4.60 3 231.051250 -22.809972 NVSS J152412-224835 , RadioS 4.60 4 231.204708 -22.767972 [WAN2002a] J152449.13-224604.7 , G 5.50 5 231.205625 -22.766028 SN 2002dh , SN 5.50 6 231.107792 -22.852444 2MASXi J1524258-225108 , IrS 6.00 7 230.997167 -22.723667 2MASX J15235932-2243254 , IrS 6.30 8 231.001000 -22.651472 NVSS J152400-223905 , RadioS 8.40 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN/SIMBAD_NED NOTICE NOTICE_DATE: Sat Jun 14 16:23:32 UTC 2008 NOTICE_TYPE: Swift-XRT Position search TRIGGER_NUM: 303105 RA: 231.1475 (J2000) DEC: -22.7414 (J2000) SIMBAD search for XRT_RA,Dec=231.147,-22.741,dist=1.0arcmin Num RA Dec Name Type Num_Pub Distance 1 231.14750000 -22.74152778 GRB 080212 gB 17 0.04 NED search for XRT_RA,Dec=231.1475,-22.7414,dist=1.0arcmin Num RA Dec Name Type Distance 0 0.00 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////