0000000000429995
AUTHOR
Antonio Jimenez Escobar
showing 3 related works from this author
Preliminary Mechanical Characterization of Thermal Filters for the X-IFU Instrument on Athena
2018
The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) is one of the two instruments of the Athena astrophysics space mission approved by ESA in the Cosmic Vision Science Program. The X-IFU consists of a large array of TES microcalorimeters that will operate at ~ 50 mK inside a sophisticated cryostat. A set of thin filters, highly transparent to X-rays, will be mounted on the cryostat thermal shields in order to attenuate the IR radiative load, to attenuate RF electromagnetic interferences, and to protect the detector from contamination. In this paper, we present the current thermal filters design, describe the filter samples developed/procured so far, and present preliminary results from the ongoing charac…
Ariel: Enabling planetary science across light-years
2021
Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, was adopted as the fourth medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme to be launched in 2029. During its 4-year mission, Ariel will study what exoplanets are made of, how they formed and how they evolve, by surveying a diverse sample of about 1000 extrasolar planets, simultaneously in visible and infrared wavelengths. It is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and thermal structures of hundreds of transiting exoplanets, enabling planetary science far beyond the boundaries of the Solar System. The payload consists of an off-axis Cassegrain telescope (primary mirror 1100 mm x 730 mm e…
Temperature effects on the performances of the ATHENA X-IFU thermal filters
2016
The X-Ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) detector on-board ATHENA is an array of TES micro-calorimeters that will operate at ~50 mK. In the current investigated design, five thermal filters (TF) will be mounted on the cryostat shields to attenuate IR radiative load and avoid energy resolution degradation due to photon shot noise. Each filter consists of a thin polyimide film (~50 nm thick) coated with aluminum (~30 nm thick). Since the TF operate at different temperatures in the range 0.05-300 K, it is relevant to study how temperature affects their mechanical/optical performances (e.g. near edge absorption fine structures of the atomic elements in the filter material). Such results are crucia…