http://arxiv.org/abs/1904.03307
ATHENA is a large-class ESA mission selected for launch in 2031. It is designed to address the science theme “The Hot and Energetic Universe”, performing X-ray observations (0.2-12 keV) at the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrangian point. The X-IFU is one of the two instruments of the payload. It is a cryogenic spectrometer providing spatially resolved high-resolution spectroscopy. The core of the instrument is a large array of TES microcalorimeters, operated at a 50 mK thermal bath. The X-IFU performances would be strongly degraded by the particle background expected in the L2 environment, thus advanced reduction techniques have been adopted to reduce this contribution by a factor $\sim$50. This is needed to enable many core science objectives of the mission. Most of the background reduction ($\sim 80\%$) is achieved thanks to the Cryogenic AntiCoincidence detector (CryoAC), a 4 pixels TES microcalorimeter which will be placed less than 1 mm below the TES array. The CryoAC is a sort of instrument-inside-the-instrument, with independent cold and warm electronics and a dedicated data processing chain. To reach the required particle rejection efficiency ($\sim 98 \%$) it will have a wide energy band (from 20 keV to $\sim$ 1 MeV) and a low deadtime ($< \sim 2\%$), while respecting several constraints to ensure mechanical, thermal and electromagnetic compatibility with the TES array. Here I will report my PhD research activity, which has been focused on the development of the CryoAC Demonstration Model (DM), a single pixel detector requested by ESA before the mission adoption. The thesis is divided in two main parts. In the first one I will mainly present the astrophysical framework of my research, and in the second one I will focus on the experimental activities carried out towards the CryoAC DM development.
M. D’Andrea
Tue, 9 Apr 19
1/105
Comments: PhD thesis defended on December 21, 2018. Tutors: Luigi Piro (INAF/IAPS) and Claudio Macculi (INAF/IAPS). PhD joint research program in “Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science” between the Universities of Rome “La Sapienza” and “Tor Vergata”, with the collaboration of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF)
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