X-ray Astronomy Study with the ASCA Satellite

该项目的目的是在日本和美利坚合众国的协作下进行ASCA的观测和作业，并从对包括致密天体、超新星遗迹、活动星系核、星系团和宇宙X射线背景在内的X射线双星的X射线观测中获得科学成果。ASCA是日本与美国合作建造的第四颗日本X射线卫星，于1993年2月20日发射升空。本项目的成果总结如下：(1)我们每年都召开国家会议和日美国际会议，从提案中选择观测目标，并讨论卫星的观测组织和运行。(2)我们检查了卫星上仪器的性能，并提供了仪器响应的校准数据库，包括仪器性能随时间的退化。(3)我们不断更新各种数据分析软件程序，并生成了档案数据库，以方便国际用户。(4)我们分析了我们自己的观测数据，并与我们的伙伴国讨论了结果。这些科学成果在国际会议上发表并发表在学术期刊上。(5)所有档案数据在所有者专用期结束后以有条不紊的格式向世界各地的科学家发布。由于这笔赠款的支持，我们能够在日本和美国的合作下，很好地开展ASCA观测和手术。我们在ASCA观测的各个X射线天文学领域取得了显著的科学成果。

The purpose of this project is to perform observations and operations of ASCA in a collaboration between Japan and the United States of America, and to obtain scientific results from the X-ray observations on the X-ray binaries including compact objects, supernova remnants, active galactic nuclei, clusters of galaxies and the cosmic X-ray background. ASCA is the fourth Japanese X-ray satellite which was constructed in a collaboration between Japan and the U.S.A., and it was launched on February 20, 1993. The results of this project are summarized below :(1)We had national meetings and Japan-U.S.A.international meetings every year to select observation targets from the proposals, and discuss the organization of observation and operation of the satellite.(2)We examined the performance of the instruments onboard the satellite and provided the calibration database of the response of the instruments, including a time-dependent degradation of the performance of instruments.(3)We continuosly updated various software programs for data analysis, and produced an archival database for the convenience of international users.(4)We analyzed data from our own observations, and discussed the results with our partner country. These scientific results were presented at the international conferences and were published in academic journals.(5)All of the archival data were released to the scientists around the world with well-organized formats when the period of exclusive use by the owners expired.Because of the support by this grant-in-aid, we were able to perform well the ASCA observations and operations under the collaboration between Japan and the U.S.A.We obtained remarkable scientific results from the ASCA observations in various fields of X-ray astronomy.