BEaTriX, expanded X-ray beam facility for testing modular elements of telescope optics: an update

TL;DR

BEaTriX is a compact X-ray beam facility designed to test and optimize large X-ray telescope modules with high precision, enabling in-situ quality control and alignment for space observatories like ATHENA.

Contribution

This paper provides an updated design and performance simulation of the BEaTriX facility, demonstrating its capability to produce low-divergence, uniform X-ray beams in a compact setup.

Findings

BEaTriX produces a 60mm x 200mm low-divergence X-ray beam.

The facility achieves a divergence of 1.5 arcsec HEW at 4.5 keV.

Performance simulations confirm suitability for testing ATHENA optics.

Abstract

We present in this paper an update on the design of BEaTriX (Beam Expander Testing X-ray facility), an X-ray apparatus to be realized at INAF/OAB and that will generate an expanded, uniform and parallel beam of soft X-rays. BEaTriX will be used to perform the functional tests of X-ray focusing modules of large X-ray optics such as those for the ATHENA X-ray observatory, using the Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) as a baseline technology, and Slumped Glass Optics (SGO) as a possible alternative. Performing the tests in X-rays provides the advantage of an in-situ, at-wavelength quality control of the optical modules produced in series by the industry, performing a selection of the modules with the best angular resolution, and, in the case of SPOs, there is also the interesting possibility to align the parabolic and the hyperbolic stacks directly under X-rays, to minimize the aberrations. However, a parallel beam with divergence below 2 arcsec is necessary in order to measure mirror elements that are expected to reach an angular resolution of about 4 arcsec, since the ATHENA requirement for the entire telescope is 5 arcsec. Such a low divergence over the typical aperture of modular optics would require an X-ray source to be located in a several kilometers long vacuum tube. In contrast, BEaTriX will be compact enough (5 m x 14 m) to be housed in a small laboratory, will produce an expanded X-ray beam 60 mm x 200 mm broad, characterized by a very low divergence (1.5 arcsec HEW), strong polarization, high uniformity, and X-ray energy selectable between 1.5 keV and 4.5 keV. In this work we describe the BEaTriX layout and show a performance simulation for the X-ray energy of 4.5 keV.