Mirror system for the German x-ray satellite ABRIXAS: II. Design and mirror development

Abstract. The Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, and the Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik of the university of Tübingen, together with European cooperation partners and ESA, plan to install an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station (ISS). The mission ROSITA (ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array) will perform the first imaging all-sky survey in the medium energy X-ray range up to 10 keV with an unprecedented spectral and angular resolution. The main scientific goals are (1) to detect systematically all obscured accreting Black Holes in nearby galaxies and altogether about 50,000 AGN in the 2-10 keV band, (2) to detect the hot intergalactic medium of several ten thousand galaxy clusters, and (3) to study in detail the physics of galactic X-ray source populations, like pre-main sequence stars, supernova remnants, and X-ray binaries. In the hard X-ray band (above 2 keV) the ROSITA survey will have a hundred times higher sensitivity and a hundred times better angular resolution than the last all-sky survey in this band, which was performed about 25 years ago. In the soft band (0.5-2 keV) the ROSITA survey will be more sensitive and have a substantially better energy and also angular resolution than the ROSAT all-sky survey. The telescope will consist of seven 27-fold nested Wolter-1 mirror systems, the type already flown on ABRIXAS, and a novel detector system currently being developed by MPE on the basis of the successful XMM pn-CCD technology. Major improvements of the new camera are a higher time and energy resolution.

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“…We will copy the ABRIXAS mirrors (Egle et al, 1998) for ROSITA thereby reducing the risk of a new development (Fig. 3).…”

Section: X-ray Opticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rosita

Predehl¹,

Friedrich

Hasinger

et al. 2003

Astron Nachr

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“…The achieved surface smoothness was well in specification (see chapter 6). 6 ACHIEVED PERFORMANCE Tab. 5: Achieved optical performance on both Constellation-X development mandrels 7 SUMMARY/CONCLUSIONS Both Constellation-X development mandrels have been fabricated well in the specified NASAIMSFC requirements (Tab.…”

Section: Microroughnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

<title>Production and testing of development mandrels for Constellation-X</title>

Egle¹,

Altmann²,

Hafner³

et al. 2000

SPIE Proceedings

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Two identical Wolter type 1 mandrels, with 50 cm diameter and 8.4 meter focal length, to be used by NASA/MSFC for their Constellation-X mirror development program, have been produced and tested by Carl Zeiss. In August 1999, both mandrels have been delivered to MSFC.Key optical performance ofboth mandrels: -On-axis}IEW:<3.2arcsec -Micro-roughness: better than 0.30 nm RMS We will report about mandrels design, fabrication, test and verification oftheir Xray optical performance.

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“…This German X-ray survey mission was launched in 1999, but a spacecraft power system fault terminated the mission a few hours after the launch. DUO makes use of the fully qualified mirror modules with a 3.3 deg 2 field-of-view (Egle et al 1998); a pn-CCD focal plane camera based on the flightproven XMM design (Struder et al 2002;Pfefferman et al 2002); a copy of the ABRIXAS optical bench; and a Ball Aerospace RS-300-derived spacecraft bus. The 45" angular resolution of the mirror averaged over the field of view will distinguish clusters from point-like sources (see Figure 4).…”

Section: Mission Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

DUO: the Dark Universe Observatory

Griffiths

Petre

Hasinger

et al. 2004

UV and Gamma-Ray Space Telescope Systems

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Dark Energy dominates the mass-energy content of the universe (about 73%) but we do not understand it. Most of the remainder of the Universe consists of Dark Matter (23%), made of an unknown particle. The problem of the origin of Dark Energy has become the biggest problem in astrophysics and one of the biggest problems in all of science. The major extant X-ray observatories, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton, do not have the ability to perform large-area surveys of the sky. But Dark Energy is smoothly distributed throughout the universe and the whole universe is needed to study it. There are two basic methods to explore the properties of Dark Energy, viz. geometrical tests (supernovae) and studies of the way in which Dark Energy has influenced the large scale structure of the universe and its evolution. DUO will use the latter method, employing the copious X-ray emission from clusters of galaxies. Clusters of galaxies offer an ideal probe of cosmology because they are the best tracers of Dark Matter and their distribution on very large scales is dominated by the Dark Energy. In order to take the next step in understanding Dark Energy, viz. the measurement of the 'equation of state' parameter 'w', an X-ray telescope following the design of ABRIXAS will be accommodated into a Small Explorer mission in lowearth orbit. The telescope will perform a scan of 6,000 sq. degs. in the area of sky covered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (North), together with a deeper, smaller survey in the Southern hemisphere. DUO will detect 10.000 clusters of galaxies, measure the number density of clusters as a function of cosmic time, and the power spectrum of density fluctuations out to a redshift exceeding one. When combined with the spectrum of density fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background from a redshift of 1100, this will provide a powerful lever arm for the crucial measurement of cosmological parameters.

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Mirror system for the German x-ray satellite ABRIXAS: II. Design and mirror development

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Rosita

Rosita

<title>Production and testing of development mandrels for Constellation-X</title>

DUO: the Dark Universe Observatory

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