Build and Demonstrate a X-Ray Interferometer and Build and Fly a High Resolution Telescope on a Sounding Rocket

摘要

This report is written with eight months still go on the 36 month period of the grant. This grant, as originally proposed three years ago, was two pronged - to build and demonstrate a practical x-ray interferometer, and to build and fly a high resolution telescope on a sounding rocket. As we started into these projects, we received community feedback that led to our giving priority to the interferometer., The rocket would achieve O.2-arcsecond resolution that, while better, than that of Chandra, would, because of the limited signal of a sub-orbital flight, not be of substantially greater scientific use. The interferometry, on the other hand, shows the potential for many orders of magnitude improvement. For this reason we gave priority to the lab interferometry, and the building of the telescope lagged behind. With our new understanding (and practical demonstration) of how to build an interferometer, we changed the telescope design from spherical surfaces in the Kirkpatrick-Baez configuration, to an interferometer with resolution between .005 and .05 arcseconds.