LOFT, the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing

TL;DR

LOFT is a proposed X-ray observatory with large-area silicon detectors designed to study extreme matter and spacetime near black holes and neutron stars with high time and spectral resolution.

Contribution

It introduces an innovative large-area silicon drift detector design for high-time-resolution X-ray observations in a space mission context.

Findings

Design achieves ~10 m^2 effective area at 8 keV

Spectral resolution of ~260 eV at 6 keV

Time resolution of ~10 microseconds

Abstract

The Large Observatory For X-ray Timing, LOFT, was selected by the European Space Agency as one of the four Cosmic Vision M3 candidate missions to compete for a launch opportunity at the start of the 2020s. Thanks to an innovative design and the development of large-area monolithic silicon drift detectors, the Large Area Detector (LAD) on board LOFT will operate in the 2-30 keV range (up to 50 keV in expanded mode), and achieve an effective area of ~10 m^2 at 8 keV, a time resolution of ~10 {\mu}s, and a spectral resolution of ~260 eV (FWHM at 6 keV). These characteristics make LOFT a perfectly suited instrument to perform high-time-resolution X-ray observations of collapsed objects in our galaxy and brightest supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. LOFT will yield unprecedented information on strongly curved spacetimes and matter under extreme conditions of pressure and magnetic field strength, thus addressing two of the fundamental questions of the Cosmic Vision Theme "Matter under extreme conditions": does matter orbiting close to the event horizon follow the predictions of general relativity? What is the equation of state of matter in neutron stars?