Development status and Simulation Study of Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) Mission

摘要

MAXI (Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image) is a payload on board the International Space Station, and will be launched on April 2009. We report on the current development status on MAXI, in particular on the two types of X-ray camera (GSC and SSC), and the simulation results of the MAXI observation. SSC is a CCD camera. The moderate energy resolution enables us to detect the various emission peak including 0.5 keV oxygen line. The averaged energy resolution at the CCD temperature of -70 °C is 144.5eV (FWHM) for 5.9 keV X-ray. GSC includes proportional gas counters, which have large X-ray detection area (5350cm~2). The averaged position resolution of 1.1mm at 8 keV enable us to determined the celestial position of bright sources within the accuracy of 0.1°. The simulation study involving the results of performance test exhibits the high sensitivity of MAXI as designed.