HEADNEWS: THE ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER OF THE
HIGH ENERGY ASTROPHYSICS DIVISION OF THE AAS
Newsletter No. 99, December 2011
Back to Contents
9. INTEGRAL Mission News
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Christoph Winkler (ESA-ESTEC) & Steven Sturner (NASA/GSFC)
The spacecraft, payload and ground segment are performing nominally. Routine annealing #18 of the SPI detectors will take place from 21 Nov until 12 December 2011.
The supplementary AO-9 Call for associated data-right proposals was released on 5 September 2011. All accepted AO-9 observations (except ToO) are open to the science community to propose for accessing data on sources contained in the FOV of the accepted observations. By the deadline of 17 October, ESA received 52 valid proposals, requesting data rights to 155 fields and for 477 targets in total (a single data right proposal can request observational data from multiple fields defined in observing proposals and multiple sources in each field). As expected, the large majority of requests are for galactic compact objects. The Time Allocation Committee will decide on the proposals by mid November 2011. The AO-9 cycle of observations begins on 1 January 2012. Preparations for the AO-10 are underway. Release of this new AO for observing proposals will be around March 2012.
The 9th INTEGRAL workshop "An INTEGRAL view of the high-energy sky (the first 10 years)" will take place from the 15 to 19 October 2012 in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France (Bibliotheque Francois Mitterrand). During this week we will celebrate the 10th launch anniversary of the INTEGRAL mission, on 17 October 2012. The main goal of this workshop is to present and to discuss (via invited and contributed talks and posters) the latest results obtained in the field of high-energy astrophysics using the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory INTEGRAL, as well as results from observations from other ground- and space-based high-energy observatories and from associated multi-wavelength campaigns.
For further information and calendar of events see: http://IntegralWorkshop2012.in2p3.fr
Some recent scientific highlights since the last report (May 2011) include:
Reflection in Seyfert galaxies and the unified model of AGN
C. Ricci et al., A&A 532, 102 (2011)
The hard X-ray emission of Centaurus A.
V. Beckmann et al., A&A 531, 70 (2011)
Constraints on Lorentz Invariance Violation using Integral/IBIS observations of GRB 041219A
P. Laurent et al., Physical Review D 83, 121301 (2011)
IGR J17354-3255 as a candidate intermediate SFXT possibly associated with the transient MeV AGL J1734-3310
Sguera, V. et al. MNRAS 417, 573 (2011)
The Brightest Gamma-Ray Flaring Blazar in the Sky: AGILE and Multi-wavelength Observations of 3C 454.3 During 2010 November
S. Vercellone et al., ApJ 736, 38 (2011)
Back to Contents