ART-XC: A Medium-energy X-ray Telescope System for the Spectrum-R-Gamma Mission

The ART-XC instrument is an X-ray grazing-incidence telescope system in an ABRIXAS-type optical configuration optimized for the survey observational mode of the Spectrum-RG astrophysical mission which is scheduled to be launched in 2011. ART-XC has two units, each equipped with four identical X-ray multi-shell mirror modules. The optical axes of the individual mirror modules are not parallel but are separated by several degrees to permit the four modules to share a single CCD focal plane detector, 1/4 of the area each. The 450-micron-thick pnCCD (similar to the adjacent eROSITA telescope detector) will allow detection of X-ray photons up to 15 keV. The field of view of the individual mirror module is about 18 x 18 arcminutes(exp 2) and the sensitivity of the ART-XC system for 4 years of survey will be better than 10(exp -12) erg s(exp -1) cm(exp -2) over the 4-12 keV energy band. This will allow the ART-XC instrument to discover several thousand new AGNs

The eROSITA X-ray telescope on SRG

eROSITA (extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array) is the primary instrument on the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) mission, which was successfully launched on July 13, 2019, from the Baikonour cosmodrome. After the commissioning of the instrument and a subsequent calibration and performance verification phase, eROSITA started a survey of the entire sky on December 13, 2019. By the end of 2023, eight complete scans of the celestial sphere will have been performed, each lasting six months. At the end of this program, the eROSITA all-sky survey in the soft X-ray band (0.2-2.3 keV) will be about 25 times more sensitive than the ROSAT All-Sky Survey, while in the hard band (2.3-8 keV) it will provide the first ever true imaging survey of the sky. The eROSITA design driving science is the detection of large samples of galaxy clusters up to redshifts z > 1 in order to study the large-scale structure of the universe and test cosmological models including Dark Energy. In addition, eROSITA is expected to yield a sample of a few million AGNs, including obscured objects, revolutionizing our view of the evolution of supermassive black holes. The survey will also provide new insights into a wide range of astrophysical phenomena, including X-ray binaries, active stars, and diffuse emission within the Galaxy. Results from early observations, some of which are presented here, confirm that the performance of the instrument is able to fulfil its scientific promise. With this paper, we aim to give a concise description of the instrument, its performance as measured on ground, its operation in space, and also the first results from in-orbit measurements

CAMEX readout ASICs for pnCCDs

For the readout of pnCCD we developed a series of CAMEX ASICs since the early 90’s. With the advent of DEPFET PIXEL detectors the existing CAMEX readout chip was adopted for these new detectors. The actual generation of CAMEX readout chips is fabricated in a standard 5V CMOS technology with JFET option at the Fraunhofer IMS in Duisburg, Germany. To qualify the new CAMEX readout ASICs we performed several measurements including weighting function measurements, multiplexer performance and linearity as well as performance figures of the integrated bias DACs. Performance values together with the pnCCD will be shown. Further tests will also reveal the radiation performance of the ASIC. The main application of these CAMEX chips is the X-ray astronomy project eROSITA (extended Roentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array). This X-ray telescope will be accommodated aboard the new Spectrum Roentgen Gamma satellite. It consists of seven parallel oriented mirror modules (Wolter-I optics) each having its own pnCCD camera in the focus. The pnCCD detector consists of 384×384 imaging pixels with 75μm size plus a frame store area. The satellite launch is planned for the year 2011.The parallel architecture of the pnCCD and CAMEX allows lownoise readout of a full 384 × 384 pixel image within ≪8 ms. Full size prototypes of the detector system are currently under test. Another application are detectors for the evolving X-ray free electron lasers, a new generation of synchrotron light sources. X-ray FEL facilities provide pulses of coherent X-ray light of high brilliance in the energy range of below 0.3 keV up to 24 keV. New prototype pnCCDs for these applications have a size of 512x1024 pixels and are readout with 8 CAMEX chips operating in parallel to archive a frame rate of up to 200Hz

Present and future semiconductor tracking detectors

Copy held by FIZ Karlsruhe; available from UB/TIB Hannover / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman