Ray-traced effective area and angular resolution of NewAthena’s optics

Abstract

The recently reformulated NewAthena's mirror assembly uses Silicon Pore Optics technology. This paper aims to assess and confirm the latest mirror geometry's ability to meet the mission's science goals. Ray-tracing simulations of NewAthena's SPO mirror assembly have been performed using the ray-tracing tool SPORT, and used to evaluate the optics' performance based on effective area and angular resolution.All variants are found to produce an effective area at 1 keV of around 1.24 m 2 , well beyond the scientific requirement of 1.1 m 2 . All variants are shown, when assuming a perfectly shaped and aligned mirror that is perfectly smooth, to have an intrinsic PSF that is an order of magnitude below the scientific requirement. Comparing these intrinsic PSF's, the secondary polynomial performs best at energies below 7.5 keV. Above this energy, the equal polynomial variant performs best. A phenomenon is also shown where shifting destructive interference causes periodic peaks and troughs in the PSF HEW of individual rings of the optics, though this effect is not seen in the PSF HEW of the entire optics.