Detailed Description
The naming convention of the configuration provides a summary of the
properties of the data. For generic event data, the format
E_ttt_ccX_ll_rr
gives
- E
- - mnemonic denoting a generic binned mode
- ttt
- - the time bin size ("us" denotes microseconds)
- cc
- - the number of energy channels
- X
- - the code denoting the binning of the energy channels
- ll
- - the lower channel boundary
- rr
- - the readout time (either 8 s or 1 s)
For example, in the E_31us_16M_50_1s configuration, events
are time-stamped with 31-microsec resolution, in 16 PHA channel bands
with the "M" channel distribution/binning scheme starting at channel
50, and are read out
every 1 second. For a complete list of available Event mode
configurations, see the RXTE
PCA Configurations page. For more details about the different
event mode
configurations, please consult the Technical Appendix.
The configuration name does not, however, give a complete description of the data. Rather, the key to understanding your Event data lies in "decoding" the event word template. The template itself occupies the TEVTB2 keyword in the header of the XTE_SE extension. It is written in DDL - the Data Descriptor Language - and can be displayed on the screen using the ftool fkeyprint. But since the TEVTB2 keyword can be somewhat long, it is often better to look first at the neighbouring - and complimentary - TDDES2 keyword. Also written in DDL, the TDDES2 keyword describes which events have been selected by the EDS. As an example, here is the value of TDDES2 in the E_1us_1M_0_1s configuration:
D[0~4] & E[X1L^X1R^X2L^X2R^X3L^X3R] & C[0~249]
which, broken into its parts, means:
- D[0~4] - events come from detectors 0-4, i.e. PCUs 0-4 (DDL's ~ symbol denotes a range).
- E[X1L^X1R^X2L^X2R^X3L^X3R] - each event comes from only one of the the six detector elements per PCU, i.e. the six Xe anodes (DDL's ^ symbol denotes an exclusive or).
- C[0~249] - events come from channels 0-249.
Now let's look at the TEVTB2 keyword for the same E_1us_1M_0_1s configuration:
(M[1]{1},D[0:4]{3},T[0.0:0.00390625;9.5367431640625e-07]{12})^
(M[127]{8},S[One5]{5},S[FirstFlag]{1},S[SpillFlag]{1},S[Zero1]{1})^
(M[1]{8},S[LostEvents0]{8})^
(M[2]{8},S[LostEvents1]{8})^
(M[4]{8},S[Zero]{7},S[Spillage]{1})^
(M[8]{8},S[Zero]{5},S[ModeSpecific]{3})
This looks intimidatingly verbose. However, the keyword actually contains six alternative templates, each denoted by a