The LOFT mission concept: a status update
Name
The LOFT mission.pdf
Size
4.28 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Chakrabarty, Deepto
Grinberg, Victoria
Homan, Jeroen
Neilsen, Joseph M. G.
Remillard, Ronald A
Weinberg, Nevin N.
Nowak, Michael A.
Date Issued
July 2016
Journal
Proceedings of SPIE--the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
Publisher
SPIE
Citation
Feroci, M. et al. “The LOFT Mission Concept: A Status Update.” Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 9905, 26 June, 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, SPIE, 2016. © 2016 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing (LOFT) is a mission concept which was proposed to ESA as M3 and M4 candidate in the framework of the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program. Thanks to the unprecedented combination of effective area and spectral resolution of its main instrument and the uniquely large field of view of its wide field monitor, LOFT will be able to study the behaviour of matter in extreme conditions such as the strong gravitational field in the innermost regions close to black holes and neutron stars and the supra-nuclear densities in the interiors of neutron stars. The science payload is based on a Large Area Detector (LAD, >8m2 effective area, 2-30 keV, 240 eV spectral resolution, 1 degree collimated field of view) and a Wide Field Monitor (WFM, 2-50 keV, 4 steradian field of view, 1 arcmin source location accuracy, 300 eV spectral resolution). The WFM is equipped with an on-board system for bright events (e.g., GRB) localization. The trigger time and position of these events are broadcast to the ground within 30 s from discovery. In this paper we present the current technical and programmatic status of the mission.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2233161
