Opening the path to hard X-/soft gamma-ray focussing: the ASTENA-pathfinder mission

TL;DR

The paper proposes the ASTENA-pathfinder mission to significantly improve imaging and spectroscopic capabilities in hard X-/soft gamma-ray astronomy, enabling advanced studies of transient and nuclear astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mission concept with a Laue lens and position-sensitive detector to enhance gamma-ray imaging and spectroscopy beyond current limitations.

Findings

Design of a Laue lens with 20 m focal length for 50-700 keV range

Expected unprecedented imaging and spectroscopic capabilities

Potential to study gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, and positron annihilation

Abstract

Hard X-/soft gamma-ray astronomy is a crucial field for transient, nuclear and multimessenger astrophysics. However, the spatial localization, imaging capabilities and sensitivity of the measurements are strongly limited for the energy range > 70 keV. To overcome these limitations, we have proposed a mission concept, ASTENA, submitted to ESA for its program Voyage 2050. We will report on a pathfinder of ASTENA, that we intend to propose to ASI as an Italian mission with international participation. It will be based on one of the two instruments aboard ASTENA: a Laue lens with 20 m focal length, able to focus hard X-rays in the 50-700 keV passband into a 3-d position sensitive focal plane spectrometer. The combination of the focussing properties of the lens and of the localization properties of the detector will provide unparalleled imaging and spectroscopic capabilities, thus enabling studies of phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts afterglows, supernova explosions, positron annihilation lines and many more.