Grazing Incidence Telescope Research Articles

Extreme-ultraviolet Stellar Characterization for Atmospheric Physics and Evolution mission: motivation and overview

The Extreme-ultraviolet Stellar Characterization for Atmospheric Physics and Evolution (ESCAPE) mission is an astrophysics Small Explorer employing ultraviolet spectroscopy (EUV: 80 to 825 Å and FUV: 1280 to 1650 Å) to explore the high-energy radiation environment in the habitable zones around nearby stars. ESCAPE provides the first comprehensive study of the stellar EUV and coronal mass ejection environments that directly impact the habitability of rocky exoplanets. In a 20-month science mission, ESCAPE will provide the essential stellar characterization to identify exoplanetary systems most conducive to habitability and provide a roadmap for NASA’s future life-finder missions. ESCAPE accomplishes this goal with roughly two-order-of-magnitude gains in EUV efficiency over previous missions. ESCAPE employs a grazing incidence telescope that feeds an EUV and FUV spectrograph. The ESCAPE science instrument builds on previous ultraviolet and x-ray instrumentation, grazing incidence optical systems, and photon-counting ultraviolet detectors used on NASA astrophysics, heliophysics, and planetary science missions. The ESCAPE spacecraft bus is the versatile and high-heritage Ball Aerospace BCP-Small spacecraft. Data archives will be housed at the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes.

Optical design of diffraction-limited x-ray telescopes.

Astronomical imaging with micro-arcsecond (µas) angular resolution could enable breakthrough scientific discoveries. Previously proposed µas x-ray imager designs have been interferometers with limited effective collecting area. Here we describe x-ray telescopes achieving diffraction-limited performance over a wide energy band with large effective area, employing a nested-shell architecture with grazing-incidence mirrors, while matching the optical path lengths between all shells. We present two compact nested-shell Wolter Type 2 grazing-incidence telescope designs for diffraction-limited x-ray imaging: a micro-arcsecond telescope design with 14 µas angular resolution and 2.9m2 of effective area at 5 keV photon energy (λ=0.25nm), and a smaller milli-arcsecond telescope design with 525 µas resolution and 645cm2 effective area at 1 keV (λ=1.24nm). We describe how to match the optical path lengths between all shells in a compact mirror assembly and investigate chromatic and off-axis aberrations. Chromatic aberration results from total external reflection off of mirror surfaces, and we greatly mitigate its effects by slightly adjusting the path lengths in each mirror shell. The mirror surface height error and alignment requirements for diffraction-limited performance are challenging but arguably achievable in the coming decades. Because the focal ratio for a diffraction-limited x-ray telescope is extremely large (f/D∼105), the only important off-axis aberration is curvature of field, so a 1 arc sec field of view is feasible with a flat detector. The detector must fly in formation with the mirror assembly, but relative positioning tolerances are on the order of 1 m over a distance of some tens to hundreds of kilometers. Although there are many challenges to achieving diffraction-limited x-ray imaging, we did not find any fundamental barriers.

Simulation method of Wolter type I grazing incidence telescope imaging of an X-ray region

This paper presents a method for simulating Wolter type I grazing incidence telescope imaging of an X-ray region. The imaging quality of a soft X-ray telescope is mainly affected by geometric aberrations, surface scatter and alignment errors. Using a Legendre-Fourier polynomial to fit the figure errors in the cylindrical coordinate system, the geometry of the mirror barrel with the figure errors can be modeled by the User Defined Object in ZEMAX. Based on the Harvey-Shack surface scatter theory, surface scatter is achieved by the Bidirectional Scatter Distribution Function (BSDF) scattering model. The alignment errors are calculated by a combination of experiment and simulation according to the shape of the spot resulting from the finite distance imaging experiment. By combining these factors that affect image quality, the telescope imaging of an infinity point is simulated by ZEMAX. According to the simulation results, the angular resolution of the telescope is calculated to be less than or equal to 1.86′ at a wavelength of 1.33 nm. The simulation method improves the ability of ZEMAX to simulate grazing incidence telescope imaging. This is of great significance for the research and manufacture of X-ray grazing incidence telescopes.

A novel method to characterize the angular resolution of soft X-ray grazing incidence telescope

In this paper, a novel method is proposed to characterize the operation-waveband angular resolution of the soft X-ray grazing incidence telescope. According to the method, the first is to restore the “geometric image” by removing the aperture diffraction effect from the resolution testing target image measured at visible waveband. The second is to calculate the operation-waveband resolution testing target image by the convolution of “geometric image”, diffraction point spread function and surface scattering point spread function. Finally, the operation-waveband (4.47 nm) angular resolution of 9.72″ is calculated according to the operation-waveband resolution testing target image on axis. The method does not need to be performed in vacuum and to place the source away from the solar X-ray grazing incidence telescope, which greatly reduces the testing cost and improves the efficiency for the development of the soft X-ray grazing incidence telescope.

软X射线掠入射望远镜的成像质量评价

软X射线掠入射望远镜的成像质量评价

X射线散射法测量Wolter-I型掠入射望远镜的表面粗糙度

The X-ray scattering method is investigated in application of characterizing surface roughness of X-ray grazing incidence telescope. The surface figure effect on the scattering diagram of the curved rough mirror is analyzed in detail based on generalized Harvey-Shack surface scatter theory and image formation theory, when smooth-surface approximation is met and the width of the incident beam is about one tenth of spatial wavelength of the surface figure. Based on the analysis, the characterizing scheme is designed and the determination error of the one-dimensional power spectral density function due to the finite width of the receiving slit before the detector is discussed. The scheme is simulated with Zemax and the simulated results verify that the surface figure only affects the measuring accuracy of the low-spatial-frequency surface roughness. The method overcomes difficulty in measuring roughness of the grazing incidence mirror with high resolution conveniently during the development of the X-ray grazing incidence telescope.

Ray tracing method for the evaluation of grazing incidence x-ray telescopes described by spatially sampled surfaces.

The nested grazing incidence telescope can achieve a large collecting area in x-ray astronomy, with a large number of closely packed, thin conical mirrors. Exploiting the surface metrological data, the ray tracing method used to reconstruct the shell surface topography and evaluate the imaging performance is a powerful tool to assist iterative improvement in the fabrication process. However, current two-dimensional (2D) ray tracing codes, especially when utilized with densely sampled surface shape data, may not provide sufficient accuracy of reconstruction and are computationally cumbersome. In particular, 2D ray tracing currently employed considers coplanar rays and thus simulates only these rays along the meridional plane. This captures axial figure errors but leaves other important errors, such as roundness errors, unaccounted for. We introduce a semianalytic, three-dimensional (3D) ray tracing approach for x-ray optics that overcomes these shortcomings. And the present method is both computationally fast and accurate. We first introduce the principles and the computational details of this 3D ray tracing method. Then the computer simulations of this approach compared to 2D ray tracing are demonstrated, using an ideal conic Wolter-I telescope for benchmarking. Finally, the present 3D ray tracing is used to evaluate the performance of a prototype x-ray telescope fabricated for the enhanced x-ray timing and polarization mission.

Photoelectric X-ray Polarimetry with Gas Pixel Detectors

The Gas Pixel Detector, recently developed and continuously improved by Pisa-INFN in collaboration with IASF-Roma (INAF), can visualize the tracks produced within a low Z gas by photoelectrons of few keV. By reconstructing the impact point and the original direction of the photoelectrons, the GPD can measure the polarization plane of X-Ray photons, while preserving the information on the absorption point, the energy and the time of arrival of individual photons. Applied to X-ray Astrophysics, in the focus of grazing incidence telescopes, it can perform angular and energy resolved polarimetry with a large improvement of sensitivity, when compared with the conventional techniques of Bragg diffraction at 45° and Compton scattering around 90°. This configuration has been the basis of POLARIX and HXMT, two pathfinder missions, and was included in the baseline design of IXO, the very large X-ray telescope under study by NASA, ESA and JAXA. We have recently improved the design of this low energy polarimeter (2–10keV) by modifying the geometry of the absorption cell to minimize any systematic effect that could leave a residual polarization signal for non-polarized source. We will report on the testing of this new concept.

Grazing incidence telescopes for x-ray astronomy

With grazing incidence telescopes, x-ray astronomy became a major branch of astrophysics. They are an indispensable tool in the study of >106 K thermal and non-thermal high energy phenomena occurring in objects from the solar system to the most distant sites in the universe. They have shed light upon dark matter and dark energy. Four cosmic missions with focusing grazing incidence x-ray telescopes based upon the Wolter 1 geometry are currently in space. They include two observatory class facilities launched in 1999, NASA's high resolution x-ray and ESA's high throughput XMM-Newton. Two others are Japan's Suzaku, performing a variety of studies, and the Swift XRT, which finds precise positions for the x-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts. Four new cosmic missions with Wolter-like focusing telescopes are scheduled for launch. They will provide much broader bandwidth (NuSTAR and Astro-H), perform a new sky survey with more exposure time and a broader energy range than previous surveys (eROSITA), have an imaging detector with much better energy resolution (Astro-H), and measure polarization (GEMS). The Kirkpatrick-Baez and the lobster-eye are two types of potentially useful grazing incidence telescopes that have not yet been in orbit. It may not be possible to improve upon Chandra's 0.5 arcsec resolution without new technology.

X-ray polarimetry in astrophysics with the Gas Pixel Detector

The Gas Pixel Detector, recently developed and continuously improved by Pisa INFN in collaboration with IASF-Roma of INAF, can visualize the tracks produced within a low Z gas by photoelectrons of few keV. By reconstructing the impact point and the original direction of the photoelectrons, the GPD can measure the linear polarization of X-rays, while preserving the information on the absorption point, the energy and the time of individual photons. Applied to X-ray Astrophysics, in the focus of grazing incidence telescopes, it can perform angular resolved polarimetry with a huge improvement of sensitivity, when compared with the conventional techniques of Bragg diffraction at 45° and Compton scattering around 90°. This configuration is the basis of POLARIX and HXMT, two pathfinder missions, and is included in the baseline design of IXO, the very large X-ray telescope under study by NASA, ESA and JAXA.

Roughness scattering in X-ray grazing-incidence telescopes

In the framework of the scalar theory of diffraction, we determine the rms width of the angle spread function degraded by surface roughness in reflective grazing-incidence optics of cylindrical symmetry for X-ray astronomy. Our derivation does not rely on the small roughness approximation, is thus valid for arbitrary roughness values, and takes into full consideration the cylindrical symmetry of the mirrors. The dependence of the rms beam width on both the grazing-incidence angles and the radiation wavelength is studied for both single and double reflection optics, the latter being more relevant to X-ray telescopes. When the small roughness approximation is applicable, we also derive an expression for the angle spread function of the optical system in the presence of roughness scattering that provides the correct expression for the rms beam width.

Meteoroid and space debris impacts in grazing-incidence telescopes

Context. Micrometeoroid or space debris impacts have been observed in the focal planes of the XMM-Newton and Swift-XRT (X-ray Telescope) X-ray observatories. These impacts have resulted in damage to, and in one case the failure of, focal-plane Charge-Coupled Device (CCDs) detectors.

Diffractive–refractive X-ray optics for very high angular resolution X-ray astronomy

The 0.5 arcsec angular resolution of the Chandra X-ray Observatory is possibly the best that a grazing incidence telescope with substantial collecting area will ever attain. We describe a telescope consisting of a diffractive and refractive doublet that transmits rather than reflects X-rays. Therefore, its angular resolution is relatively insensitive to figure errors and surface roughness, the factors that limit grazing incidence telescopes. When the focal length of the refractive component is minus twice that of the diffractive the chromatic aberration that is inherent in the diffractive and refractive components individually will compensate each other within a limited but not insignificant energy band. We consider a system with a long focal length, about 5000 km, to allow the refractive lens to be thin and transmit X-rays. The long focal length requires very long distance formation flying between an optics spacecraft and a detector spacecraft that must be aligned to better than a few centimeters. Solar orbit is a likely site. We simulate an imaging system where chromatic aberration is corrected to first order at 6 keV. The angular resolution is expected to be better than 0.3 miliarcsec within a 10% bandwidth. The components are lightweight, and can probably be made in a machine shop.

SADE: The starspot and dynamo explorer

We propose a mission called SADE, the Starspot And Dynamo Explorer, to study dynamo activity in nearby late-type stars. The onboard instruments will be a Ca-K telescope for magnetically dominated chromospheric emission, and an X-ray grazing incidence telescope to study coronal emission. We design the mission for a life-time of 15 years or longer to capture a full activity cycle for most solar-type stars. We aim to firmly establish the spectrum of the relation between chromospheric and corona' emission in late-type stars, and capture one or more stars going into or coming out of a Maunder type minimum. Operation costs will be kept to a minimum by automating mission operations to a maximum, and have the science operations be carried out by students at Montana State University.

Optimization of grazing incidence mirrors and its application to surveying X-ray telescopes

Grazing incidence mirrors for X-ray astronomy are usually designed in the parabola-hyperbola (Wolter I) configuration. This design allows for optimal images on-axis, which however degrade rapidly with the off-axis angle. Mirror surfaces described by polynomia (with terms higher than order two), have been put forward to improve the performances over the field of view. Here we present a refined procedure aimed at optimizing wide-field grazing incidence telescopes for X-ray astronomy. We improve the angular resolution over existing (wide-field) designs by ~ 20%. We further consider the corrections for the different plate scale and focal plane curvature of the mirror shells, which sharpen by another ~ 20% the image quality. This results in a factor of ~ 2 reduction in the observing time needed to achieve the same sensitivity over existing wide-field designs and of ~ 5 over Wolter I telescopes. We demonstrate that such wide-field X-ray telescopes are highly advantageous for deep surveys of the X-ray sky.

Grazing-incidence telescope–spectrograph for space solar-imaging spectroscopy

The design of a stigmatic grazing-incidence instrument for space applications to solar-imaging spectroscopy is presented. It consists of a double telescope and a spectrograph: Telescope I consists of a single cylindrical mirror with parabolic section, focusing the radiation on the entrance slit of the spectrograph in the spectral dispersion plane; telescope II consists of two cylindrical mirrors with aspherical section in a Wolter configuration, focusing the radiation on the spectrograph focal plane in the direction perpendicular to the spectral dispersion plane. The spectrograph consists of a grazing-incidence spherical variable-line-spaced grating with flat-field properties. Telescope II is crossed with respect to the grating and telescope I; i.e., it is mounted with its tangential planes coincident with the grating equatorial plane. The spectrum is acquired by a detector mounted at near-normal incidence with respect to the direction of the exit beam. The spectral resolution is also preserved for off-axis angles. The effective collecting area of the instrument can be preserved by adoption of a nested configuration for telescope II without degradation of the spectral resolution.

Systems engineering analysis of aplanatic Wolter type I x-ray telescopes

It is well known that normal-incidence aplanatic telescope de- signs perform better at small field angles than ones corrected only for spherical aberration. This is why most large astronomical telescopes fab- ricated in the past fifty years have been of the Ritchey-Chretien (aplanatic) design rather than of the classical Cassegrain design. For the relatively new field of x-ray astronomy, the Wolter type I grazing inci- dence design has been extensively utilized. It consists of a paraboloidal primary mirror coaxial with a confocal hyperboloidal secondary mirror. Aplanatic versions of the Wolter type I grazing incidence x-ray telescope have been discussed in detail in the literature, and are widely touted as being superior designs. However, scattering effects from residual optical fabrication errors and other practical engineering error sources prevent these grazing-incidence telescopes from being near diffraction-limited (even on axis) at the very short operational x-ray wavelengths. A sys- tems engineering analysis of these error sources indicates that they will dominate coma at the small field angles, and of course astigmatism, field curvature, and higher-order aberrations dominate coma at the large field angles. Hence, there is little improvement in performance when going to an aplanatic design. Comparison of performance predictions for the clas- sical versus aplanatic Wolter type I x-ray telescope are presented for the special case of the Solar X-Ray Imager (SXI) baseline design. SXI is expected to become a standard subsystem aboard the next generation of NOAA/GOES weather satellites. © 2000 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumen- tation Engineers. (S0091-3286(00)01606-8)

The Global Dynamics of the High-Temperature Corona

This paper surveys coronal motions detected by the Yohkoh soft X-ray telescope SXT, emphasizing ‘global restructuring’. Large-scale structures in the solar corona can persist for time scales much longer than those of the supergranulation, and may have larger spatial scales. Flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) can disrupt these structures. A grazing-incidence telescope such as SXT provides a view of the corona biased in temperature towards the hotter components, but in a thick ‘observing slice’ (spatial contribution function). This helps in seeing excitation (energy release) but may conceal some of the structural changes. The observations of restructuring largely appear to consist of expanding or outwards magnetic motions, which are endoergic. This suggests a conjecture regarding the existence of magnetic implosions on scales not yet detected, as a source of free energy.

Supermirror hard-x-ray telescope

The practical use of a grazing x-ray telescope is demonstrated for hard-x-ray imaging as hard as 40 keV by means of a depth-graded d-spacing multilayer, a so-called supermirror. Platinum-carbon multilayers of 26 layer pairs in three blocks with a different periodic length d of 3-5 nm were designed to enhance the reflectivity in the energy range from 24 to 36 keV at a grazing angle of 0.3 deg. The multilayers were deposited on thin-replica-foil mirrors by a magnetron dc sputtering system. The reflectivity was measured to be 25%-30% in this energy range; 20 mirror shells thus deposited were assembled into the tightly nested grazing-incidence telescope. The focused hard-x-ray image was observed with a newly developed position-sensitive CdZnTe solid-state detector. The angular resolution of this telescope was found to be 2.4 arc min in the half-power diameter.

Multilayer X-Ray Optics for Future Missions

Multilayers have a great potentiality to improve the image quality, spectral resolution and energy coverage of x-ray optical systems. The angular resolution of a normal incidence telescope aims at approaching the diffraction limit in the soft x-ray region. Multilayer supermirror makes it possible to fabricate a grazing incidence telescope with high sensitivity in hard x-ray region. Multilayer coated gratings are also useful dispersive elements with high efficiency and spectral resolution in the 2-10keV region. The application of multilayers is expected to open up a new field in astronomical imaging and spectroscopic observations which are not accessible by present telescopes.