COMMENTS ON and RFC ON RECENT GCN CIRCULAR CONTENT: 31 Jan 99 INTRODUCTION: I would like to take this opportunity (1) to discuss the matter of content of the GCN Circulars being submitted, and (2) to call for comments from the community. When the Circular service was originally planned, the intent was that the content would be soley about (1) reports of observations made, or (2) statements of near-term planned observations to be made. The later content has not materialized (yet); and the former has been overwhelmingly fruitful. Please note that this discussion is not based on, or targetted to, any specific Circular. I believe that for the most part they have been suitable. However, I am openning this debate under the assumption that if left unaddressed, the content-scope of the Circulars will continue to expand too far beyond the observations-only scope. THEORY CIRCULARS: As luck would have it, the surprizingly bright optical magnitude for GRB990123 at T_zero has openned up the scientific debate on the topic of gravitational lensing. It is this discussion on the possibility of gravitationally lensed events which has prompted this e-mail. When the Circulars were originally planned, the idea of "theory" circulars were thought to be not appropriate -- this service is a "results-only" forum. [I use the term theory in a very broad sense, and mostly to distiguish from pure observational results circulars.] However, I believe I overlooked that there can be a significant contribution from the GRB theorists. But I want to be clear that I believe the proper value of a theory submission is ONLY if it makes a prediction about future developments for a particular burst. A theory circular by itself -- just describing how the burst-of-the-day supports a given theory -- is NOT acceptable in this forum. For example, a quantitative prediction of up-coming lensed events (or the quantitative prediction of no lensing) is a valid topic for the Circulars, because it allows the follow-up community to make efficient observation strategies. The key point is that there is a quantative prediction of near-term developments for a specific GRB. Long-term predictions (and non-quantitative speculations) should be made in the traditional publications. The dividing line between near-term and far-term is in the "weeks" time-frame (longer allows for other avenues of communication to be used, e.g. astro-ph, etc). The downside to theory circulars (even if predictive) is that the content is never as clearcut as it is with observation circulars. In observation circulars, the measurements are made, the anslysis is performed, and the results are listed (e.g. the V=21.3, flux(@8.4GHz)=100 mJy, etc). However, in theory discussions, the conclusions are seldom clearcut, because of the many assumptions (implicit or explicit) that went into the derivation, calculation, and conclusion. Witness the discussion on gravitational lensing for GRB990123. Ignoring for the moment the differences in the details of the conclusions drawn by the various authors (e.g. delay time scales of days to months, microlensing or not), there is a remarkable difference in the major conclusion about the probability of lensing itself -- from large to essentially nonexistant. These comments are made with no criticism of the authors, but only to point out that the conclusions are much harder to derive with a high confidence level than for a straight-forward observation. And therein lies a problem of the ultimate value of predictive theory Circulars to the follow-up observation community. The pace and logistics of the post-burst follow-up activity is problematic enough without having a confusion of claims and counter-claims of what will happen (in the scale of hours, days, or weeks). Please understand that I am trying to keep the GCN Circular service from becoming a "chat room" for GRBs. Clearly, if the signal-to-noise content drops to a low enough value, people will stop reading and/or submitting their results. I encourage the community to reply to these thoughts and to communicate all other comments they might have about the Circular service in the future. To be useful to the community, it must meet your needs. SPLITTING THE LIST INTO SUB-LISTS? One option would be to split the Circulars list up into subject-catagory sub-lists. Each person in the list would receive only those Circulars in the catorgies they have selected. Because of the recent addition of XTE-ASM x-ray transients to the GCN Notices operation, there could quite naturally need a Circulars catagory for follow-up observations on those non-GRB transients (novae, flare stars, etc). Continuing the concept, a catagory could also be created for theory Circulars. A possible procedure for this would be for submitters to include a keyword in the Subject-line of their submissions (much like the current requirement for the GRB or SGR strings to appear). The keywords might be: GRB, XTRANS, and THEORY. The Circulars deamon would check for these tokens and distribute the current Circular to only those individuals that elected to receive that catagory. [Ignore for the moment cross-coupling, e.g. a Theory GRB vs a Theory XTRANS Circular.] Even with the creation of a separate theory catagory, it should most likely be limited to just near-term predictive circulars. The real theory articles belong in the traditional publication channels (e.g. astro-ph, etc). I had thought that ASM x-ray transients would not need a separate catagory from GRBs, because the occurance rate of these ASM x-ray transients is relatively low (~8/yr) and the follow-up observations on them will be even lower. However, with the advent of this "theory" issue, maybe the time is now to split the Circulars list into sub-lists. Attached in Appendix B is a document I had prepared prior to this recent situation when Don Smith (MIT) and I were working out the details of the ASM-XTRANS capability. It describes in more detail the mechanism and submitter-procedures for the XTRANS type. I am proposing the same procedures for this THEORY sub-list (along with the simultaneous creation of the XTRANS sub-list). Appendix B also explains why some other submitter-procedures do not work so well (i.e. the different e-mail addresses method, etc). CALL FOR COMMENTS: In this "call for comments" from the community, I really would like to hear from you on this matter (pro, con, or indiferent). While it may well appear that I have chosen a "course of action" for the future of the GCN Circulars, this is by no means true. I have choosen what I think best at this time (based on a very small input from a few people), but you should consider it to be only a strawman proposal and a starting point for discussion and input from you. Several key aspects were discussed: 1) predictive-theory submissions being acceptable (none or some), 2) is "weeks" a suitable discriminator for discussions of predicted activity, 3) splitting the list up into filterable catagories (GRBs, XTRANS, Theory), 3a) should XTRANS be left within the GRB list? Or separate? 3b) should there be a (predictive) Theory sub-list at all, or just eliminated? I want to hear from you on these, plus any others that I have forgotten. Sincerely, Scott Barthelmy NASA-GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD 20771 PHONE: 301-286-3106 (work) FAX: 301-286-1684 (1st choice, -1682 2nd choice) EMAIL: scott@lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov PAGER: 1-800-SKY-PAGE, PIN 2618712 (by phone, voice menu/instructions) PAGER: 2618712@skymail.com (by email, 240 characters max per message) WEB: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn ///////////////////////////// Appendix A //////////////////////////////////// GCN MESSAGE CONTENT GUIDELINES: The following are some guidelines on what should and should not be in the messages you submit. I have copied these from the web page (http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/gcn3_circulars.html) for your convenience. 1) One GRB per Submission: Each message should be limited to a single GRB. If you have observations on more than one GRB, then you should divide them up into individual submissions. This is to allow for automated archiving by specific individual bursts (i.e. Subject-line). 2) Subject-line Format: The Subject-line in your submission should be of the form "GRBYYMMDD" & any optional string like ", optical observations", ", counterpart detection", Keck spectroscopy", or ", VLA observations", etc. So the full Subject-line should look like: "GRB971214, optical observations". The Subject-line is copied unaltered to the SUBJECT-line in the header of the outgoing circular. 3) Report Contents: The content of the circulars should be limited to (a) the specifics of your observation (RA,Dec location, magnitudes, bands, spectral information, variability, upper limits, etc), (b) the details of your upcoming planned observation (e.g. Keck will do spectroscopy in 3 hrs, etc), or (c) predictions of near-term developments (lensed episodes, flare ups, etc), where near-term means anything less a few weeks. 4) Quality of Content: It is understood by everyone in the GCN/GRB community that these reports are preliminary. While everyone makes their best attempt to submit accurate reports, these reports are also timely, based on preliminary analysis, and may be subject to change. See the "Corrections" section below. 5) Just the Facts Ma'am: Submitters are discouraged from editorializing, debating, critiquing, etc other people's work and reports. This is not a "discussion group". Limit your submissions to just the facts of your observations, the conclusions to be drawn from your observations, plans for future observations, & requests for correlated efforts with the rest of the community. However, if your observations are in disagreement with another observation, you can of course discuss these differences in your report. 6) URLs & Tables: If you have observations that are too voluminous to fit within this GCN Circular framework or their format is incompatible (binary images, spectra, etc), then you should include a URL or other instructions directing the reader to these data. 7) Tabs and Special Characters: The use of tabs in producing tables is cautioned because the recipient may have a different tab-stop setting than the one you used (tabstops of 4 and 8 spaces are common). The use of special characters (e.g. control characters) is strongly discouraged, as well are any formatting type directives (e.g. LaTeX, *roff, MSWord, etc), since it is extremely unlikely that the reader will have access to these formatting packages, especially at remote locations like telescope domes. 8) References: References to previous GCN Circulars should be of the form "J. Doe, et al., GCN Circ. 27, 1998" or "GCN #27" or just "GCN 27". References to journal articles, books, etc, follow the standard conventions & formats. 9) Contact Information: You can list "contact" information (e.g. phone number(s) & e-mail address(s), especially if different than the address that appears in the by-line) to allow the reader to contact you for further communications. 10) Citability: Submitters are encouraged to include a statement as to whether or not their report is citable in other publications. Lacking such a statement, people should assume that the report is citable. All the normal conventions and common courtesy regarding "private communications" are assumed to be in effect. 11) Citations: Since these GRB follow-up efforts are fast-paced, it is possible that not everyone will be aware of all previous work. The reasons are numerous: people may not have access to their normal or full e-mail accounts, they have just spent the last two hours furiously analyzing their own data, it's 5 o'clock in the morning and the mind is somewhat frazzled by lack of sleep, etc. As such, a reference to prior work may be innocently left out of the current circular. While everyone will make an honest effort to be current and to cite prior work, some omissions will inevitably happen. ///////////////////////////// Appendix B //////////////////////////////////// This is the text of an email I was planning to distribute as a result of the addition of the XTE-ASM-XTRANS Notice. But now this "splitting" concept is part of a larger proposal in light of the "theory" Circular. This document still has value because it describes in better detail how a sub-catagory split Circulars list would work in practice (both for the submitting and for receiving). Hello GCN Circular member: 15 Jan 99 INTRODUCTION TO A CHANGE OF SCOPE FOR THE GCN CIRCULARS: I am thinking of changing the scope of the GCN Circulars to include additional topics. Currently, the Circulars are for GRBs and SGRs. I have been approached by a few people with the idea that it should be expanded to cover other topics, like X-ray Transients (e.g. detected by RXTE-ASM and -PCA; but not limited to those detections). CALL FOR COMMENTS: This e-mail is a call for comments on this idea. The details of how it might work are explained below. I strongly encourage people to comment on this proposed change: (1) Do you want this expansion at all?, (2) Is the method of keeping the catagories separate suitable? Both for the submitter? And the recipient? (3) Are there any changes you would like? Etc? THE CURRENT SYSTEM: Currently, the GCN Circular system works as follows: people e-mail a follow-up observation report to gcncirc@lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov with a Subject-line of the form "GRBYYMMDD, optical observations". If the account_name and domain in the From-line are in the list of valid submitters, then a short header is prefixed to the body of the e-mail, and it is distributed to the members of the list. A key aspect of this validation process is the requirement that a "GRB" or "SGR" string appear in the Subject-line of the submitted report. SUGGESTED METHOD FOR THE EXPANDED SYSTEM: I propose that the GCN Circulars can be expanded to cover topics other than GRBs and SGRs, by using the Subject-line keyword feature already in place. So for x-ray transients, the keyword would likely be XTRANS. And the entire Subject-line might look like: "XTRANS XTE0958+26, optical counterpart detected". People would continue to submit reports by e-mailing to the gcncirc@lheawww address. The processing program would look for the GRB (SGR) or XTRANS keyword and then distribute the Circular to only these people in the list that want that type of subject catagory. Much like the GCN Notices system (that has enable/disable switches for each site for each Notice type), the Circulars system would now have a set of enable/disable switches for each recipient for each subject catagory. For submitters that misremembered the proper keyword to use, the system would mail back to the submitter a response saying your submission was not accepted for the following reason(s), and it would list the accepted keywords (e.g. GRB, SGR, XTRANS). [The current system already does this mail-back feature for four different types of non-acceptance scenarios, thus allowing the submitter to fix the problem and resubmit.] A TRANSITION PLAN: If I get positive feedback on this proposed change (and if I don't get strong negative feedback), then I would take the current list of recipients and set them up to receive only GRB(SGR) Circulars (since that is the current subject matter for the Circulars). People wishing to receive the X-ray transient Circulars would have to notify me that they want that catagory as well (a simple 1-line e-mail or phone call will do). And, of course, if there are peple who wish to receive only XTRANS Circulars, then they can be accomodated within this scheme as well. ALTERNATIVE SUBMISSION METHOD: Instead of using the Subject-line keyword technique, an alternative method would be have submitters e-mail their reports to different addresses for each subject topic (e.g gcncirc@lheawww for GRBs, xtranscirc@lheawww for x-ray transients, etc). This seems like it would be more difficult for the submitter to remember the different addresses. And it is much harder to impliment a mail-back scheme for a problem submission -- if you forget the address, then how do you get a helpfile mailed to you? MORE IN THE FUTURE: If this expansion is adopted, there is no reason it can not be expanded to include even more topics. As with the GRBs and XTRANS, there would be a specific keyword to be used in the Subject-line of reports being submitted, and an enable/disable switch for each catagory for each recipient. MISCELANEOUS: Each outgoing Circular will continue to have a unique serial number. There will be only one sequence of numbers for all the subject catagories. All circulars will continue to be archived on the GCN web site. And there will be sub-archives of the collected Circulars for each x-ray transient of interest. CALL FOR COMMENTS: I have suggested a possible expansion to the current Circular system. People are strongly encouraged to respond with comments, suggestions, changes, likes, dislikes, etc. As always, this system will only work if people are confortable with its operation and if the scientific utility is high. Sincerely, Scott Scott Barthelmy NASA-GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD 20771 PHONE: 301-286-3106 (work) FAX: 301-286-1684 (1st choice, -1682 2nd choice) EMAIL: scott@lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov PAGER: 1-800-SKY-PAGE, PIN 2618712 (by phone, voice menu/instructions) PAGER: 2618712@skymail.com (by email, 240 characters max per message) WEB: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn