0000000000027245
AUTHOR
S. Lotti
TES microcalorimeter for IXO: From focal plane to anticoincidence detector
The high resolution spectroscopy provides a unique technique to extract fundamental information in X-ray Astrophysics and Cosmology. In order to exploit at the best the capability of carrying out spectroscopy of faint sources, great care must be taken to reduce the background in the main detector. In this paper, we will present the working principle of a TES (Transition Edge Sensor) Microcalorimeter, its application for fine spectroscopy and a novel anticoincidence technique , based itself on a TES detector. Recent results from the first sample of the IXO-anticoincidence detector will be also shown.
The Cryogenic Anticoincidence Detector for ATHENA-XMS
The TES cryogenic detectors, due to their high spectral resolution and imaging capability in the soft X-ray domain, are the reference devices for the next proposed space missions whose aims are to characterize the spectra of faint or diffuse sources. ATHENA is the re-scoped IXO mission, and one of its focal plane instrument is the X-ray Microcalorimeter Spectrometer (XMS) working in the energy range 0.3-10 keV. XMS will be able to achieve the proposed scientific goals if a background lower than 0.02 cts/cm2/s/keV is guaranteed. The studies performed by GEANT4 simulations depict a scenario where it is mandatory to use an active Anti-Coincidence (AC) to reduce the expected background in the L…