SwiftFT: X-ray Point Sources in Gamma-Ray Burst Fields, 2005-2008

SwiftFT is a catalog of point sources detected by the Swift satellite's X-ray Telescope in observations centered on gamma-ray bursts from January 2005 to December 2008. The catalog was generated from 374 fields covering ~32.55 square degrees, with a total exposure of 36.8 Ms. It was produced by NASA with international participation, using the XIMAGE package to detect sources in three X-ray energy bands.

Use Cases

• Analyze X-ray source hardness ratios based on the soft, hard, and full energy band count rates.
• Study the statistical properties of serendipitous X-ray sources based on the survey's uniform coverage of random sky areas.
• Model X-ray source fluxes in the 0.5-10, 0.5-2, and 2-10 keV bands based on the described spectral conversion method.
• Investigate source detection significance based on the catalog's threshold for spurious detections.

Strengths

• Data covers a specific four-year time range (Jan 2005 - Dec 2008).
• Survey is based on 374 fields covering a total area of ~32.55 square degrees.
• Total exposure time is 36.8 Ms, with ~32% of fields having >100 ks exposure.
• Sources were cleaned of spurious and extended objects by visual inspection.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to the specific four-year observation window.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Sources detected by the Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT), analyzed using the XIMAGE package version 4.4.1 with a sliding-cell method.

Time Range

Jan 2005 - Dec 2008

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 20:08:27.429916; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Observations centered on gamma-ray bursts, covering random, unrelated parts of the sky.