The history of X-ray astronomy has shown that any advancement in our knowlrdge of the X-ray sky is strictly related to an increase in instrument sensitivity. At energies above 60 KeV, there are interesting prospects for greatly improving the limiting sensitivity of the current generation of direct viewing telescopes (with or without coded masks), offered by the use of Laue lenses. We will discuss below the development status of a hard X-ray focusing telescope (HAXTEL) based on Laue lenses with a broad continuum of celestial sources. We show two examples of multi-lens configurations with expected sensitivity orders of magnitude better than that achieved so far. With this unprecedented sensitivity, very exciting astrophysical prospects are opened.
Exploring the hard-X-/soft gamma ray continuum spectra with Laue lenses
FRONTERA, Filippo;PISA, Alessandro;DE CHIARA, Paola;LOFFREDO, Gianluca;PELLICCIOTTA, Damiano;CARASSITI, Vittore;EVANGELISTI, Federico;
2005
Abstract
The history of X-ray astronomy has shown that any advancement in our knowlrdge of the X-ray sky is strictly related to an increase in instrument sensitivity. At energies above 60 KeV, there are interesting prospects for greatly improving the limiting sensitivity of the current generation of direct viewing telescopes (with or without coded masks), offered by the use of Laue lenses. We will discuss below the development status of a hard X-ray focusing telescope (HAXTEL) based on Laue lenses with a broad continuum of celestial sources. We show two examples of multi-lens configurations with expected sensitivity orders of magnitude better than that achieved so far. With this unprecedented sensitivity, very exciting astrophysical prospects are opened.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
