Calibration sources for the soft x-ray spectrometer instrument on ASTRO-H

摘要

The SXS instrument is the Soft X-ray micro-calorimeter Spectrometer planned for the Japanese ASTRO-Hsatellite, scheduled to be launched in 2014. In this paper we describe the X-ray calibration sources used in thisinstrument. These sources use light sensitive photo-cathodes to generate electrons, which in turn generate theX-rays. This design has the unique property to allow for fast discrete pulsations of the generated X-rays. Thisenables the energy scale calibration of the instrument simultaneously with astronomical observations, withoutadding to the background in the astronomical data. Flight-model sources have been made, and a number of themhave been operating in the past several months to monitor their behaviour. Here we report on the characterisationand performance of these sources. In addition, we will elaborate on the nature and expected accuracy of theenergy calibration, in relation to the expected stability of the instrument, given the calibration source strengthand its mode of operation.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.