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Swift support

Helpdesk

Questions about Swift? Try our guide to Swift or the guide to data processing and analysis. If these don't solve your problem, please feel free to e-mail us at swifthelp@le.ac.uk.

List of acronyms and abbreviations

We are located in the Department of Physics & Astronomy , at the University of Leicester (directions).

Guest Investigator Program

The Swift Guest Investigator Program is an annual announcement of opportunity soliciting proposals from the community for research relevant to the Swift mission. The GI programs begin at the start of each April and last for approximately 12 months (Cycle 14 runs from 1st April 2018 until 31st March 2019). Observing time is available for scientists at both US and non-US institutions, although only those Principal Investigators at US institutions will be eligible for funding from NASA. No funding is provided for the fill-in category.

GI Cycle 14: Deadline passed

Swift provides an opportunity for simultaneous optical to hard X-ray observations of targets, allowing broad-band analysis. The X-ray Telescope is specifically designed to choose the best operating mode for the X-ray flux of the object in question.

As started in Cycle 12, there is a Key Projects category. Such projects are intended to provide significant advances in Swift science, and require a very strong justification. In these cases, 6 pages are allowed for the scientific justification (4 pages only are allowed for all other proposals), with an additional 1 page narrative required if funding is being requested.

Cycle 14 again includes the option to submit a single proposal for combined observing programs between Swift and XMM-Newton, Chandra, INTEGRAL or NRAO (VLA, GBT and VLBA); NuSTAR now also joins this list. More details are available on the main GI page.

In this cycle, there will be up to 2 Ms available for non-ToO targets, 1 Ms for ToOs, 1 Ms for large programs and 1 Ms for fill-in targets. ToOs for GRBs detected with instruments other than Swift (e.g., MAXI, Fermi, IPN) are included in this time.

Requests for fill-in observations cannot be time-constrained (e.g. coordinated with ground- or space-based facilities), although both ToOs and non-ToOs may be, provided the window for the observation exceeds 3 hours. There is no restriction on the maximum number of time-constrained observations permitted.

The duration of an observation (ie a single visit to a target) is limited to between 1 and 40 ks, although several observations may be requested.

See the NASA page for more details (FAQs), or contact the Leicester Swift help-desk.

List of Cycle 13 (2017-2018) accepted targets

Previous Cycles

Cycle 13 (2017-2018)
Cycle 12 (2016-2017)
Cycle 11 (2015-2016)
Cycle 10 (2014-2015)
Cycle 9 (2013-2014)
Cycle 8 (2012-2013)