A Large Area Detector proposed for the Large Observatory for X-ray Timing (LOFT)

TL;DR

The paper presents the design and capabilities of the Large Area Detector (LAD) for the LOFT mission, a large, lightweight X-ray detector with high timing and energy resolution aimed at studying black holes and neutron stars.

Contribution

It introduces a novel large-area, low-mass silicon detector-based LAD with unprecedented timing and energy resolution for X-ray astronomy.

Findings

LAD has an effective area of ~10 m^2 at 10 keV.

It achieves photon timing accuracy <10 μs.

Energy resolution of ~260 eV at 6 keV.

Abstract

The Large Observatory for X-ray Timing (LOFT) is one of the four candidate ESA M3 missions considered for launch in the 2022 time-frame. It is specifically designed to perform fast X-ray timing and probe the status of the matter near black holes and neutron stars. The LOFT scientific payload is composed of a Large Area Detector (LAD) and a Wide Field Monitor (WFM). The LAD is a 10 m2-class pointed instrument with 20 times the collecting area of the best past timing missions (such as RXTE) over the 2-30 keV range, which holds the capability to revolutionize studies of X-ray variability down to the millisecond time scales. Its ground-breaking characteristic is a low mass per unit surface, enabling an effective area of ~10 m^2 (@10 keV) at a reasonable weight. The development of such large but light experiment, with low mass and power per unit area, is now made possible by the recent advancements in the field of large-area silicon detectors - able to time tag an X-ray photon with an accuracy <10 {\mu}s and an energy resolution of ~260 eV at 6 keV - and capillary-plate X-ray collimators. In this paper, we will summarize the characteristics of the LAD instrument and give an overview of its capabilities.