Calibration of the microcalorimeter spectrometer on-board the Hitomi (Astro-H) observatory (invited)
de Vries, C. P.; Tsujimoto, M.; Ishisaki, Y.; Yamada, S.; Mitsuda, K.; Boyce, K. R.; Eckart, M. E.; Kilbourne, C. A.; Leutenegger, M. A.; Porter, F. S.; Kelley, R. L.; Watanabe, T.; Fujimoto, R.; Tashiro, M.; Takei, Y.; Brown, G. V.; McCammon, D.; Sawada, M.; Yamasaki, N. Y.; Chiao, M. P.; Szymkowiak, A. E.; den Herder, J. -W.; Haas, D.; Sneiderman, G. A.
United States, Japan, Netherlands
Abstract
The Hitomi Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS) was a pioneering non-dispersive imaging x-ray spectrometer with 5 eV FWHM energy resolution, consisting of an array of 36 silicon-thermistor microcalorimeters at the focus of a high-throughput soft x-ray telescope. The instrument enabled astrophysical plasma diagnostics in the 0.3-12 keV band. We introduce the SXS calibration strategy and corresponding ground calibration measurements that took place from 2012-2015, including both the characterization of the microcalorimeter array and measurements of the x-ray transmission of optical blocking filters.