Concept for an innovative wide-field camera for x-ray astronomy

The use of large-area, “ne-pitch Silicon detectors has demonstrated the feasibility of wide “eld imaging experi-ments requesting very low resources in terms of weight, volume, power and costs. The ”ying SuperAGILE instru-ment is the “rst such experiment, adopting large-area Silicon microstrip detectors coupled to one-dimensionalcoded masks. With less than 10 kg, 12 watt and 0.04 m 3 it provides 6-arcmin angular resolution over > 1 sr “eldof view. Due to odd operational conditions, SuperAGILE works in the unfavourable energy range 18 60 keV. Inthis paper we show that the use of innovative large-area Silicon Drift Detectors allows to design experiments witharcmin-imaging performance over steradian-wide “elds of view, in the energy range 2 50 keV, with spectroscopicresolution in the range of 300 570 eV (FWHM) at room temperature. We will show the concept, design andreadiness of such an experiment, supported by laboratory tests on large-area prototypes. We will quantify theexpected performance in potential applications on X-ray astronomy missions for the observation and long-termmonitoring of Galactic and extragalactic transient and persistent sources, as well as localization and “ne studyof the prompt emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts in soft X-rays.Keywords: Instrumentation:detectors „ X-rays:general