Bert-Joost van Leeuwen

TL;DR: The core scientific objectives of Athena are reviewed, driving the main performance parameters of the X-IFU, namely the spectral resolution, the field of view, the effective area, the count rate capabilities, the instrumental background and the breakthrough potential.

TL;DR: The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) on board the Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (Athena) will provide spatially resolved high-resolution Xray spectroscopy from 0.2 to 12 keV, with 5 arc second pixels over a field of view of 5 arc minute equivalent diameter and a spectral resolution of 2.5 eV up to 7 keV as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) as mentioned in this paper is the high-resolution Xray spectrometer of the ESA Athena Xray observatory, which is based on a large format array of superconducting molybdenum-gold Transition Edge Sensors cooled at about 90 mK.

TL;DR: The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) as mentioned in this paper is the high-resolution Xray spectrometer of the ESA Athena Xray observatory, which is based on a large format array of superconducting molybdenum-gold Transition Edge Sensors cooled at about 90 mK.

TL;DR: The digital readout electronics (DRE) of the X-IFU, one of the two Athena focal plane instruments, is developed, which provides the control unit of the instrument with a list including for each event its time of arrival, its energy, its location on the focal plane and its grade.