Description

RSP is used to model instrument response. It has two parameters (as listed below): ARF and RMF filenames. The ARF file contains an ancillary response vector representing effective area as a function of photon energy, while the RMF file contains the redistribution matrix which maps photon energy to, e.g., PHA bin.

There are several things to be aware of:

• It is not necessary to specify both an ARF and RMF file to do analysis; for instance, the user can analyze data using only an ARF.
• In Sherpa analyses, the energy-space binning of the ARF (found typically in the ENERG_LO and ENERG_HI columns of the SPECRESP extension of the ARF file) does not have to match the analogous energy-space binning of the RMF. (This is also true if instead of energy, the ARF is defined as a function of wavelength.)
• The explicit use of RSP is only necessary if the filenames are not given in the header of the input PHA data file.

See the documentation on the INSTRUMENT command. See also the FARF1D and FRMF1D instrument models.

RSP Parameters