Hard x-ray telescopes to be onboard ASTRO-H

Abstract

The new Japanese x-ray astronomy satellite, ASTRO-H, will carry two identical hard x-ray telescopes (HXTs), which cover the energy range of 5 to 80 keV. The HXT mirrors employ tightly nested, conically approximated thin-foil Wolter-I optics, and the mirror surfaces are coated with Pt/C depth-graded multilayers to enhance the hard x-ray effective area by means of Bragg reflection. The HXT comprises foils 120–450 mm in diameter and 200 mm in length, with a focal length of 12 m. To obtain a large effective area, 213 aluminum foils 0.2 mm in thickness are tightly nested confocally. The requirements for HXT are a total effective area of >300  cm2 at 30 keV and an angular resolution of <1.7′ in half-power diameter (HPD). Fabrication of two HXTs has been completed, and the x-ray performance of each HXT was measured at a synchrotron radiation facility, SPring-8 BL20B2 in Japan. Angular resolutions (HPD) of 1.9′ and 1.8′ at 30 keV were obtained for the full telescopes of HXT-1 and HXT-2, respectively. The total effective area of the two HXTs at 30 keV is 349  cm2.