Vth School of Astroparticle Physics
23 - 28 May 2016
OHP, Saint Michel l'Observatoire

Physics of the Universe in X-rays

Collimators, coded masks and all sky monitors

Philippe LAURENT
 
Astroparticule et Cosmologie (APC)

Course
In this course, we will learn the principles of the hard X-ray imaging and its specificities when imaging by focusing X-rays with a mirror is no longer possible. We will see the principle of collimators and of different coded mask imaging technics, their performance and also caveat. We will understand how to design a coded mask system optimized for given scientific goals. We will also present the main present and future space missions (Integral, SWIFT, SVOM, …) where these technics are/will be intensively used. In particular, specific coded mask data analysis will be approach using the Integral/IBIS example. Then, we will describe the present/future all-sky monitors, mostly based on this imaging technics, and understand how they can complement the scientific throughput of big X-ray observatories.
Outline
  1. hard X-ray imaging principles: collimators and coded masks
    Objective: To understand how we can make hard X-ray images when focusing with mirrors is no longer possible. To compute the performance of this kind of imaging technics and understand how we can optimize it.
  2. Coded mask present and future missions; example of Integral/IBIS
    Objective: To discover the main present and future missions using coded mask technics. To understand in details this imaging process using the Integral/IBIS specific case
  3. All-sky monitors
    Objective: To discover the main specificities of all-sky monitors; to see how they can complement the science of present/future big X-ray space observatories.

P. Laurent (CEA) is currently the head of the French contribution to the Japanese Astro-H X-ray space mission. He spent his thesis in 1992, by studying hard X data sent by the SIGMA telescope on board the Russian-French mission GRANAT. Then, he participated to the realization and calibration of the ISGRI CdTe camera aboard the satellite INTEGRAL. Since 2016, he is the INTEGRAL/IBIS telescope co-PI. He has managed the IBIS simulation group, and organized the ground calibration of the complete satellite in ESA/ESTEC in 2001. In 2010, he co-leads the French participation to the Japan-French HXI instrument phase A studies for the IXO mission proposal. Since the launch of INTEGRAL, he studied the IBIS data from galactic black holes and neutron stars (such as Cygnus X-1, the Crab pulsar, and Gamma-Ray Bursts), with emphasis on the measure and analysis of the polarization of the gamma-ray light emitted by those sources.

 

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