Estimation of X-ray scattering impact in imaging degradation for the SIMBOL-X telescope

TL;DR

This paper presents a new formalism to estimate how surface roughness-induced X-ray scattering affects imaging quality in the SIMBOL-X telescope, establishing surface roughness tolerances based on HEW requirements.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to derive surface roughness tolerances from HEW specifications for X-ray telescope optics.

Findings

Derived surface roughness tolerances from HEW requirements.

Highlighted the significance of X-ray scattering at high photon energies.

Provided a formalism applicable to hard X-ray telescope design.

Abstract

The imaging performance of X-ray optics (expressed in terms of HEW, Half-Energy-Width) can be severely affected by X-ray scattering caused by the surface roughness of the mirrors. The impact of X-ray scattering has an increasing relevance for increasing photon energy, and can be the dominant problem in a hard X-ray telescope like SIMBOL-X. In this work we show how, by means of a novel formalism, we can derive a surface roughness tolerance - in terms of its power spectrum - from a specific HEW requirement for the SIMBOL-X optical module.