Dr. Arnold H. Rots Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics 60 Garden Street - MS 67 Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone: +1 617 496 7701 Fax: +1 617 495 7356 E-mail: arots@head.cfa.harvard.edu

Present Position:

Archive Astrophysicist, Chandra Science Center - a service of the HEAD at CfA.

Education:

1974

- Ph.D.: Univ. of Groningen, Netherlands

1971

- M.Sc.: Univ. of Groningen, Netherlands

1967

- B.Sc.: Univ. of Groningen, Netherlands

Research Interests:

I have spent much of my research career in radio astronomy, where I have worked on a wide variety of subjects but with special emphasis on galaxy dynamics, 21-cm line observations, aperture synthesis techniques, and image display techniques. Since moving to the other end of the electro-magnetic spectrum, I have developed a special interest in pulsars and timing analysis algorithms, while working in the RXTE-GOF . My special responsibilities there included the formatting of the XTE data into FITS, the RXTE mission database and archive, and absolute time keeping.

ASC Archive Matters

For general FITS issues, see the information provided by the FITS Support Office at GSFC and the FITS archive at NRAO.
The document ASC-FITS-1.1 (PostScript) details the FITS conventions adopted for the FITS files in the AXAF archive.
Those conventions comply with the HEASARC FITS Working Group's recommendations. There is no good document describing the recommended conventions; the best available are this summary and this list.

We have developed two special binary table conventions, one to define 2-dimensional regions, another to specify images through a combination of analytical and enumerated functions. The document ASC-FITS-REGION-1.0 (PostScript) defines the conventions adopted for the REGION FITS binary table format. The document ASC-FITS-FUNCTION-1.2 (PostScript) defines the conventions adopted for the FITS Embedded Function binary table format.

Of special concern are the verification and validation of the integrity of the data (FITS files) distributed by the archive. The FITS File Integrity page presents a discussion of the issues involved, as well as the available tools and techniques.

There is a list of data products for the ASC archive and a draft on Data Distribution and Dissemination (PostScript).
The design of the AXAF HEASARC-compatible Caldb is a work in progress.

Temporary links to arc4gl and access are here.

Recent Research Papers:

RXTE Absolute Timing Results for the Pulsars B1821-24 and B1509-58 (PostScript , to appear in ApJ, 10 July 1998).

Absolute Timing of X-ray Emission from Pulsars with RXTE (PostScript , Neutron Stars and Pulsars, Tokyo, November 1997).