Search Publications
Mitigating the effects of particle background on the Athena Wide Field Imager
Miller, Eric D.; Kraft, Ralph; Gastaldello, Fabio +16 more
The Wide Field Imager (WFI) flying on Athena will usher in the next era of studying the hot and energetic Universe. Among Athena's ambitious science programs are observations of faint, diffuse sources limited by statistical and systematic uncertainty in the background produced by high-energy cosmic ray particles. These particles produce easily ide…
Multilayer mirror-based soft x-ray polarimeter for astronomical observations
Marshall, Herman L.; Narendranath, Shyama; Panini, Singam S. +3 more
A simple design of a soft x-ray polarimeter using multilayer mirrors is presented. A multilayer mirror acts as a linear polarization analyzer for x-rays at incidence angles close to the Brewster angle. The instrument consists of an x-ray concentrator, a set of multilayer mirrors placed at 45 deg from the optical axis, and a detector at Nasmyth foc…
On the in-flight calibration plans of modern x-ray observatories
Petre, Robert; Guainazzi, Matteo; Audard, Marc +5 more
We present an overview of the set of celestial sources used for in-flight calibration of x-ray detectors by past and operational missions. We show the rationale behind their choice as a guideline for future missions aiming at optimizing the critical early phases of their science operations.