The Results of the Cycle 7 Peer Review

The Cycle 7 observing and research program was selected following the recommendations of the peer review panels. The peer review was held 21- 23 June 2005 at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport. 103 reviewers from all over the world attended the review, sitting on 13 panels to discuss 747 submitted proposals. The panels were organised as follows:

Galactic
Panels 1,2: Normal Stars, WD, Planetary Systems and Misc
Panels 3,4: SN, SNR + Isolated NS
Panels 5,6,7: WD Binaries + CVs, BH and NS Binaries,
Galaxies: Populations

Extragalactic
Panels 8,9: Galaxies: Diffuse Emission, Clusters of Galaxies
Panels 10,11,12: AGN, Extragalactic Surveys
Big Project Panel: LP and VLP proposals

The over-subscription rate in terms of observing time for Cycle 7 was 6:1, very similar to previous cycles.
As is our standard procedure, all proposals were reviewed and graded by the topical panels, based primarily upon their scientific

merit, across all proposal types. The topical panels produced a rank-ordered list along with detailed recommendations for individual proposals where relevant. The topical panels were allotted Chandra time to cover the allocation of time for GO observing proposals based upon the demand for time in that panel. They were also allocated money, similarly based upon demand, to fund archive and theory proposals. New this cycle, they were allotted a maximum number of constrained observations, based upon the number of constrained observations requested in that panel and chosen to ensure that only 15% of approved observations were time constrained. Large and Very Large Projects were discussed by the topical panels and ranked along with the rest, and the recommendations of these panels were recorded and passed to the Big Project Panel.
Following the deliberations of these topical panels, the Big Project Panel discussed and recommended Large and Very Large Projects to be included in the Cycle 7 science program.
The resulting observing and research program for Cycle 7 was posted on the CXC website two weeks later, 8 July 2005. Letters detailing the results and providing a report from the peer review were mailed to each PI in early August. Observations of Cycle 7 targets began in the fall 2005, with an overlap of about 6 months expected before Cycle 6 observations are completed. This is an unusually long overlap due to the difficulty of scheduling observations with the restrictions on pitch angle in place in 2005.
Each year we publish numerical statistics on the results of the peer review These can be found from the “Statistics” link for a given cycle, which is linked from the “Target Lists and Schedules” area of our website. This year, for the first time, we are presenting a subset of those statistics here, in a more easily viewable form, based on presentations made to the Chandra Users’ Committee. We expect this to become a regular feature in future Newsletters.
Figure 39 shows the number of proposals submitted of each proposal type (e.g. GO, LP, Archive etc.) as a function of cycle. Since more proposal types have become available in each cycle, the number classified as GO has decreased as other types increase.

The total number of submitted proposals is remarkably constant.
Figure 40 shows the percentage of proposals accepted, all or in part, for each type as a function of cycle. Please note that some of the fluctuations are due to small number statistics (e.g. Theory proposals).
Figure 41 is a pie chart indicating the percentage of Chandra time allocated in each science category. But note that the time available for each category is determined by the demand.

Country	Submitted	Approved
Australia	2
Austria	4
Belgium	4	1
Brazil	2
Canada	6	2
Finland	1
France	8	3
Germany	22	8
Greece	1
Israel	1
Italy	28	7
Japan	18	2
Netherlands	21	8
Scotland	1
Spain	5	2
Switzerland	6	3
United Kingdom	48	5
United States	569	142
Total Foreign	178	41

Table 5 - Proposals by country.