0000000000811699
AUTHOR
E. Kuulkers
INTEGRAL monitoring of the Black Hole candidate 1E 1740.7-2942
The brightest persistent Galactic black hole candidate close to the Galactic Centre, 1E 1740.7-2942, has long been observed with INTEGRAL. In this paper, we report on the long-term hard X-ray monitoring obtained during the first year of observations as part of the Galactic Centre Deep Exposure. We discuss the temporal and spectral behaviours in different energy bands up to 250 keV, as well as the hardness-flux correlations.
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…
The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing
The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing (LOFT) was studied within ESA M3 Cosmic Vision framework and participated in the final down-selection for a launch slot in 2022-2024. Thanks to the unprecedented combination of effective area and spectral resolution of its main instrument, LOFT will study the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions, such as the strong gravitational field in the innermost regions of accretion flows close to black holes and neutron stars, and the supra-nuclear densities in the interior of neutron stars. The science payload is based on a Large Area Detector (LAD, 10 m 2 effective area, 2-30 keV, 240 eV spectral resolution, 1 deg collimated field of view) and a WideFi…
Multi-point galactic cosmic ray measurements between 1 and 4.5 AU over a full solar cycle
The radiation data collected by the Standard Radiation Environment Monitor (SREM) aboard ESA missions INTEGRAL (INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory), Rosetta, Herschel, Planck and Proba-1, and by the high-energy neutron detector (HEND) instrument aboard Mars Odyssey, are analysed with an emphasis on characterising galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) in the inner heliosphere. A cross calibration between all sensors was performed for this study, which can also be used in subsequent works. We investigate the stability of the SREM detectors over long-term periods. The radiation data are compared qualitatively and quantitatively with the corresponding solar activity. Based on INTEGRAL and Ro…