Search Publications
A systematic analysis of the XMM-Newton background: I. Dataset and extraction procedures
Tiengo, Andrea; De Luca, Andrea; Marelli, Martino +6 more
XMM-Newton is the direct precursor of the future ESA ATHENA mission. A study of its particle-induced background provides therefore significant insight for the ATHENA mission design. We make use of ∼12 years of data, products from the third XMM-Newton catalog as well as FP7 EXTraS project to avoid celestial sources contamination and to disentangle …
A systematic analysis of the XMM-Newton background: III. Impact of the magnetospheric environment
Tiengo, Andrea; De Luca, Andrea; Marelli, Martino +6 more
A detailed characterization of the particle induced background is fundamental for many of the scientific objectives of the Athena X-ray telescope, thus an adequate knowledge of the background that will be encountered by Athena is desirable. Current X-ray telescopes have shown that the intensity of the particle induced background can be highly vari…
The role of the background in past and future X-ray missions
Molendi, Silvano
Background has played an important role in X-ray missions, limiting the exploitation of science data in several and sometimes unexpected ways. In this presentation I review past X-ray missions focusing on some important lessons we can learn from them. I then go on discussing prospects for overcoming background related limitations in future ones.
An XMM-Newton proton response matrix
Molendi, Silvano; Lotti, Simone; Mineo, Teresa +1 more
Soft protons constitute an important source of background in focusing X-ray telescopes, as Chandra and XMM-Newton experience has shown. The optics in fact transmit them to the focal plane with efficiency similar to the X-ray photon one. This effect is a good opportunity to study the environment of the Earth magnetosphere crossed by the X-ray satel…
Perspectives of observing the color indices of optical afterglows of gamma-ray bursts with ESA Gaia
Hudec, René; Šimon, Vojtěch; Pizzichini, Graziella
We propose a strategy for detecting and analyzing optical afterglows (OAs) of long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) without the need to obtain their light curves. This approach is useful for the Gaia satellite, which provides sampled optical ultra-low-dispersion spectroscopic observations of the sky. For this purpose, we show that most OAs of long GRBs dis…
The thin and medium filters of the EPIC camera on-board XMM-Newton: measured performance after more than 15 years of operation
Tiengo, Andrea; Barbera, Marco; Gastaldello, Fabio +9 more
After more than 15 years of operation of the EPIC camera on board the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, we have reviewed the status of its Thin and Medium filters. We have selected a set of Thin and Medium back-up filters among those still available in the EPIC consortium and have started a program to investigate their status by different laboratory m…
The Footprint Database and Web Services of the Herschel Space Observatory
Valtchanov, Ivan; Budavári, Tamás; Verdugo, Eva +5 more
Data from the Herschel Space Observatory is freely available to the public but no uniformly processed catalogue of the observations has been published so far. To date, the Herschel Science Archive does not contain the exact sky coverage (footprint) of individual observations and supports search for measurements based on bounding circles only. Draw…
Building the analytical response in frequency domain of AC biased bolometers. Application to Planck/HFI
Montier, Ludovic; Sauvé, Alexandre
Context: Bolometers are high sensitivity detector commonly used in Infrared astronomy. The HFI instrument of the Planck satellite makes extensive use of them, but after the satellite launch two electronic related problems revealed critical. First an unexpected excess response of detectors at low optical excitation frequency for ν < 1 Hz, and se…
Characterization of an Acousto-optic tunable filter for development of a near-IR spectrometer for planetary science
Agrawal, Prince; Nandi, A.; Sudhakar, M. +4 more
The development of a spectrometer is being carried out in the Near-Infrared (NIR) wavelength range of 1.0-1.7 µm using an Acousto-Optic Tunable Filter (AOTF). The AOTF is based on Tellurium-di-oxide (TeO2) crystal that acts as a dispersing medium and is driven by an external Radio Frequency (RF) signal. The characterization of AOT…
Degradation assessment of LYRA after 5 years on orbit - Technology Demonstration -
Gissot, S.; Schühle, U.; Saito, T. +10 more
We present a long-term assessment of the radiometric calibration and degradation of the Large Yield Radiometer (LYRA), which has been on orbit since 2009. LYRA is an ultraviolet (UV) solar radiometer and is the first space experiment using aboard a pioneering diamond detector technology. We show that LYRA has degraded after the commissioning phase…