XMM-Newton Observation of GRB011211

Events

• On December 11, 2001, at 23:53UT, XMM-Newton SOC received a Target of Opportunity notification after the BeppoSAX detection of GRB011211.
• This GRB was immediately approved by the XMM-Newton SOC for ToO observation. The observation was started on 2001-12-12T06:16:56Z under ObsId= 0094380101 during XMM-Newton's revolution number 0368 .
• The initial pointing coordinates were RA = 11:15:16.4 and Dec = -21:55:44.8
• After ~ 4 ks of photon accumulation in EPIC, a source was detected ~ 1 arcmin off the reported coordinates. This source was located so close to the edge of CCD#7 in pn that part of the PSF was falling in the inter-CCD gap. Therefore, the telescope was re-pointed to place this source at the nominal boresight location.
• The new boresight coordinates were set to RA = 11:15:18.0 and Dec = -21:56:53.0

Important note:

• The re-pointing was performed without stopping the integration in EPIC and RGS.
• As a result, GRB011211 is located in two different EPIC/RGS detector positions which affects the background
  subtraction and detector response.
• Users are informed that the re-pointing slew started at 2001-12-12T08:31:16 and finished at 2001-12-12T08:40:50.

Data

• The Observation Data File (ODF) is available here as 0094380101.tar.gz.
• The Pipeline Products are now also available in the ftp area. Details on the Pipeline process can be found here

Preview of pn images

Full pn image in sky (left) and detector (right) coordinates.

Expanded view (in detector coordinates) around GRB011211 before (left) and after (right) re-pointing.

Quick Look Analysis

The total count rate from GRB011211 decreased during the XMM-Newton observation by a factor of 2-3.

The lightcurve observed with pn: the data points before and after the re-pointing are coloured in black and red, respectively. Only events within 10 arcsec of the source peak have been counted for.

The lightcurves as seen in MOS-1 and MOS-2: only events within 9.5 arcsec of the source peak have been counted for.

A very preliminary analysis of the pn-spectrum points to a very low absorbing column density. The pn-spectrum after the re-pointing is shown in the following figure.