The Athena x-ray optics development and accommodation

Bavdaz, Marcos; Wille, Eric; Ayre, Mark; Ferreira, Ivo; Shortt, Brian; Fransen, Sebastiaan; Millinger, Mark; Collon, Maximilien J.; Vacanti, Giuseppe; Barrière, M.; Landgraf, Boris; Riekerink, Mark Olde; Haneveld, Jeroen; Start, Ronald; Baren, Coen van; Ferreira, Desiree Della Monica; Massahi, Sonny; Svendsen, Sara; Christensen, Finn Erland; Krumrey, Michael; Handick, Evelyn; Burwitz, V.; Bradshaw, Miranda; Pareschi, G.; Valsecchi, Giuseppe; Vernani, Dervis; Kailla, Geeta; Mundon, William; Phillips, G.N.; Schneider, Jakob Hans Josef; Korhonen, T.; Sánchez, Alejandro; Heinis, Dominique; Tordi, Massimiliano; Willingale, R.

doi:10.1117/12.2599341

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The fine structure effective area calibration refers to the additional knowledge required to accurately characterize photoelectric absorption edges in the payload response. In the case of the nominal Athena optics configuration, 13 the bilayer coating applied to the silicon pore optics plates is constituted by an Ir substrate and a SiC over layer. The main narrow-band features imprinted onto the mirror effective area are therefore the photoelectric K-edges of C (0.284 keV) and Si (1.8389 keV), and the M-edges of Ir (2.0404 to 3.1737 keV; cf.…”

Section: Athena Mirror Calibration Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 Effective area of the Athena mirror according to the configuration described in Ref. 13. Labels indicate the positions of the photoelectric absorption edges, at whose energies the requirement for the effective area fine structure is evaluated.…”

Section: Verification Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It will achieve transformational results in these fields by studying a wide range of astrophysical phenomena: the formation and evolution of groups and clusters of galaxies; the chemical evolution of hot baryons; feedback by active galactic nuclei (AGN); missing baryons thought to populate the intergalactic medium; the formation and early growth of black holes; and the accretion by super-massive black holes through cosmic time, among others. The innovative Athena payload consists of an X-ray telescope with a focal length of 12 m, a 5" nominal angular resolution (half energy width) and an effective area of 1.4 m 2 at 1 keV, 13 and two focal plane instruments: an X-ray integral field unit (X-IFU) for spatially-resolved, high spectral resolution (≃ 2.5 eV at 7 keV) imaging spectroscopy over a ≃ 5' effective diameter field of view; 14 and a wide field imager (WFI) for high count rate, moderate resolution spectroscopy over a large field of view (40 0 × 40 0 ). 15 Such a payload performance, coupled with a rapid response of the spacecraft to serendipitous events (≤ 4 h over a ≥ 50% field-of-regard), poses Athena as a community-driven observatory capable of achieving breakthrough results in almost every field in astrophysics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the scientific impact of the uncertainties in the Athena mirror effective area

Guainazzi

Willingale

Brenneman

et al. 2022

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst.

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.The design of space missions faces resource limitations that may severely restrict the extent of ground-based calibration programs. Ensuring that the knowledge requirements on key scientific performance are commensurate to the scientific goals of a mission is therefore crucial. In this paper, we describe a method to verify the adequacy of the X-ray effective area calibration requirements and apply it to the mirrors of Athena, the next large-class X-ray observatory of the European Space Agency. It is based on a Monte Carlo algorithm producing a set of energy-dependent mirror effective areas, which describe the limitations in our knowledge of the true performance as embedded in the calibration requirements. Applying this method to a number of simplified astrophysical scenarios related to the “hot and energetic” science themes of Athena, we conclude that the current calibration requirements of the mirror effective area are commensurate to the driving scientific requirements. Our results also stress the need to fulfill, or possibly to exceed the calibration requirements on the relative effective area to ensure fidelity in the reconstruction of X-ray, broad-band spectral features, e.g., those expected from the reflection by relativistic accretion disks around accreting black holes.

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Section: Athena Mirror Calibration Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Verification Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the scientific impact of the uncertainties in the Athena mirror effective area

Guainazzi

Willingale

Brenneman

et al. 2022

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst.

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“…In the field of high energy astrophysics, the NewATHENA mission was chosen by ESA to cover the topic of "The hot and energetic Universe" 1 . Due to budget adjustements it is currently under the process of reformulation, foreseeing some changes compared to its predecessor ATHENA 2 . This telescope will observe the X-ray Universe in the range between 0.1 keV and 10 keV with a space-based telescope to be launched in the second half of 2030s.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of carbon thin films as an overcoating candidate material for the optics of NewATHENA

Paredes Sanz,

Svendsen,

Massahi

et al. 2023

Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy XI

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The NewATHENA mission has been chosen by ESA to cover the topic of "The hot and energetic Universe". This will be carried out by studying the X-ray Universe with a space-based telescope to be launched in the second half of 2030s.Several materials have been considered as overcoating candidates for the Silicon-Pore Optics (SPO) mirror plates developed for NewATHENA. Previously, carbon did not qualify as an overcoating material since it was not compatible with the manufacturing processes. However, new coatings made in the dedicated chamber for NewATHENA located at cosine Research BV, together with an improvement on the selected cleaning procedure, have shown that carbon is now compatible with the process. This work covers the characterization of the mirror coatings for NewATHENA following a complete and representative wet chemistry process. The primary focus is on the overcoating carbon layer and the hybridisation of the atomic orbitals within its constituent atoms. For the characterization we used X-ray reflectometry (XRR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques. We performed θ − 2θ reflectivity measurements at fixed energies of 1.487 keV and 8.048 keV, and at a fixed incident angle of 0.6 • from 3.4 to 10.0 keV. We performed angle resolved XPS (ARXPS) measurements with an energy of 1.487 keV.We found that both techniques are in agreement showing an sp 3 -content on the samples around 20%, indicating a certain level of diamond-likeness. Although it remains unclear if this is the reason for the compatibility of carbon with the manufacturing process, our work shows that the species of carbon grown in the film are able to ensure a good stability of the mirror.

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