The name of the PHA file containing the order, grating and source position information. This file may be either a Type I or a Type II PHA file. (See tgextract for information on Type I/Type II PHA files.) In the case of a Type I file, this information is contained in header keywords. For a Type II file this information is contained in the data table of the SPECTRUM extension. In this case the data are specified by row number via the pharow parameter.

Note that the user does not need to specify which type of PHA file the above file is. The script will determine this via looking at the TFORMx header keywords.

Type II PHA files contain multiple spectra in the SPECTRUM binary-table extension. (Type I files contain only one spectrum.) Each row of the table contains one spectrum for a given order, grating and source. The pharow parameter specifies the appropriate row for the desired order and grating combination. (The order and grating data are contained in the TG_M and TG_PART columns). The dmlist tool can be used to determine row corresponds to which grating grating and order.

Note that if a Type I pha is specified for the phafile parameter, the pharow parameter is ignored.

The event file provides observational configuration information via FITS keywords. It also provides good-time interval (GTI) data.

This parameter gives the name of the file containing the dead-time correction factor. In the case of the HRC, these data are contained as a table in a FITS file. For the ACIS, a single value given by the DTCOR header keyword is used. This value is stored in the event file, so that usually (for the case of ACIS only!) one specifies the same value for this parameter as for the evtfile parameter.

This parameter give the aspect solution or sim-corrected aspect offset file(s). It is required as input to the asphist tool. (For additional information on this, try ahelp asphist.)

This parameter gives the specification for the energy grid. The string may specify either a file (FITS or ASCII) which contains the energy grid or an explicit energy grid. CIAO users should, in general, use a gRMF file (created with mkgrmf) for the energy grid specification.

For example, to specify the grid contained in the MATRIX block of an RMF file name "grating_rmf.fits", specify: "engrid=grid(grating_rmf.fits[MATRIX][cols ENERG_LO,ENERG_HI])" You should NOT specify a block that contains a wavelength grid! For example, often a file will contain columns named BIN_LO and BIN_HI which may contain wavelengths. Such grids may not be specified, since the values will be interpreted as energies.

To explicitly specify a grid which runs from 0.3 keV to 10.0 keV in 0.01 keV increment steps, specify: "engrid=0.3:10.0:0.01"

To use an ASCII file which contains two columns, the energ_lo and energ_hi, specify: "engrid=grid(myfile.tbl)"

Note that the preferred grid is linear in wavelength, since this reflects the natural dispersion of photons onto the detector. For back-compatibility, we write the grid in energy units in ascending order. Grating rmfs (see mkgrmf) have energy grids in descending linear wavelength. (Also see mk_tggrid, a script which converts the wavelength grid of a pha file into an FITS-format energy grid file.)

This parameter will replace the value given in ardlib.par. It is not implemented for observations involving the HRC.

The rootname for all of the output files. The script will prepend this parameter to all output filenames. The script will first check for the existence of an output file (which includes this rootname). If the file already exists, the script will not create a new version.

The mask file (msk1.fits) for the observation; used by mkgarf. The mask file is needed in particular when a window or subarray was used. A value of "NONE" indicates that no mask file will be applied.

The parameter block file, which defines ACIS pixel clocking parameters, is used in conjunction with the "dafile" parameter to apply the ACIS dead area correction. The correction is off by default in CIAO 3.4.

This is a standard product of pipeline processing and is available for every observation. Parameter block files have names of the form, "acisf146860615N001_pbk0.fits". The long string of digits refers to the time of observation (seconds since reference date).

See "ahelp mkgarf" for more information on this parameter.

ACIS "dead area" coefficients file, which may have the values "NONE" (no dead area computation), CALDB (for automatic lookup), or an explicit file reference to an ACIS "dead area" coefficients FITS table. The correction is off by default in CIAO 3.4.

The parameter block file is required to scale the coefficients in the dafile. If dafile=NONE, then pbkfile=NONE is assumed.

See "ahelp mkgarf" for more information on this parameter.

The Order Sorting and Integrated Probability file; used by mkgarf. The default value, "CALDB", indicates that the highest version for the most recent date before the observation date will be retrieved from the calibration database.

See "ahelp mkgarf" for more information on this parameter.

If set to yes, existing output files will be removed. Note that this value is passed on to each tool in the script. That is, the value chosen for this parameter will set the value for the clobber parameter of all tools called by the script.