0000000000472218
AUTHOR
K. Nandra
The on-board calibration system of the X-ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer (XIPE)
The calibration system for XIPE is aimed at providing a way to check and correct possible variations of performance of the Gas Pixel Detector during the three years of operation in orbit (plus two years of possible extended operation), while facilitating the observation of the celestial sources. This will be performed by using a filter wheel with a large heritage having a set of positions for the calibration and the observation systems. In particular, it will allow for correcting possible gain variation, for measuring the modulation factor using a polarized source, for removing non interesting bright sources in the field of view and for observing very bright celestial sources. The on-board …
XIPE: the x-ray imaging polarimetry explorer
XIPE, the X-ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer, is a mission dedicated to X-ray Astronomy. At the time of writing XIPE is in a competitive phase A as fourth medium size mission of ESA (M4). It promises to reopen the polarimetry window in high energy Astrophysics after more than 4 decades thanks to a detector that efficiently exploits the photoelectric effect and to X-ray optics with large effective area. XIPE uniqueness is time-spectrally-spatially- resolved X-ray polarimetry as a breakthrough in high energy astrophysics and fundamental physics. Indeed the payload consists of three Gas Pixel Detectors at the focus of three X-ray optics with a total effective area larger than one XMM mirror bu…