LOFT, the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing

    Project Details

    Description

    LOFT, the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing, is a proposed space mission intended to answer fundamental questions about the motion of matter orbiting close to the event horizon of a black hole, and the state of matter in neutron stars.
    LOFT was in 2011 selected by ESA as one of the four space missions concepts of the Cosmic Vision program that will compete for a launch opportunity at the start of the 2020s.
    The LOFT payload module will host two instruments: the Large Area Detector (LAD) and the Wide Field Monitor (WFM).
    The LAD will improve upon the effective area of the largest area X-ray instrument ever flown (the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer's Proportional Counter Array) by a factor of about 20. The improved energy resolution (better than 260 eV) of the LAD will allow the exploitation of spectral diagnostics of relativistically-broadened 6-7 keV (Fe-K) lines, in particular. It will be deployed through a mechanism based on that used for Synthetic Aperture Radar missions, such as the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, where very large panels are deployed in space with high accuracy.
    The Wide Field Monitor (WFM) will discover and localise X-ray transients and impulsive events and monitor spectral state changes with unprecedented sensitivity. Targeted follow-up observations will make this resource important in its own right.
    DTU Space is heading the european team planning to provide the Wide Field Monitor instrument.
    AcronymLOFT
    StatusActive
    Effective start/end date15/02/2011 → …

    Collaborative partners

    • Technical University of Denmark (lead)
    • CSIC (Project partner)
    • SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research (Project partner)
    • MSSL (Project partner)
    • ISDC Data Centre for Astrophysics (Joint applicant)
    • IAA-Tuebingen (Project partner)
    • Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics (Project partner)
    • IRAP (Project partner)
    • Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (Project partner)
    • Université de Genève (Project partner)
    • National Institute for Nuclear Physics (Project partner)

    Keywords

    • X-ray sources, neutron stars, black holes, Galactic Center
    • ESA

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    • Large Observatory for x-ray Timing (LOFT-P): a Probe-class mission concept study

      Wilson-Hodge, C. A., Ray, P. S., Chakrabarty, D., Feroci, M., Alvarez, L., Baysinger, M., Becker, C., Bozzo, E., Brandt, S., Carson, B., Chapman, J., Dominguez, A., Fabisinski, L., Gangl, B., Garcia, J., Griffith, C., Hernanz, M., Hickman, R., Hopkins, R. & Hui, M. & 14 others, Ingram, L., Jenke, P., Korpela, S., Maccarone, T., Michalska, M., Pohl, M., Santangelo, A., Schanne, S., Schnell, A., Stella, L., van der Klis, M., Watts, A., Winter, B. & Zane, S., 2016, Proceedings of Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray. den Herder, J.-W. A., Takahashi, T. & Bautz, M. (eds.). SPIE - International Society for Optical Engineering, Vol. 9905. 12 p. 99054Y

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    • The LOFT mission concept: a status update

      Feroci, M., Bozzo, E., Brandt, S., Hernanz, M., van der Klis, M., Liu, L.-P., Orleanski, P., Pohl, M., Santangelo, A., Schanne, S., Stella, L., Takahashi, T., Tamura, H., Watts, A., Wilms, J., Zane, S., Bhattacharyya, S., Agudo, I., Ahangarianabhari, M. & Albertus, C. & 430 others, Alford, M., Alpar, A., Altamirano, D., Alvarez, L., Amati, L., Amoros, C., Andersson, N., Antonelli, A., Argan, A., Artigue, R., Artigues, B., Atteia, J.-L., Azzarello, P., Bakala, P., Ballantyne, D., Baldazzi, G., Baldo, M., Balman, S., Barbera, M., van Baren, C., Barret, D., Baykal, A., Begelman, M., Behar, O., Belloni, T., Bernardini, F., Bertuccio, G., Bianchi, S., Bianchini, A., Binko, P., Blay, P., Bocchino, F., Bode, M., Bodin, P., Bombaci, I., Bonnet Bidaud, J.-M., Boutloukos, S., Bouyjou, F., Bradley, L., Braga, J., Briggs, M. S., Brown, E. J., Buballa, M., Bucciantini, N., Burderi, L., Burgay, M., Bursa, M., Budtz-Jørgensen, C., Cackett, E., Cadoux, F., Cais, P., Caliandro, G. A., Campana, S., Cao, X., Capitanio, F., Casares, J., Casella, P., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Cavazzuti, E., Cavechi, Y., Celestin, S., Cerda-Duran, P., Chakrabarty, D., Chamel, N., Château, F., Chen, Y., Chenevez, J., Chernyakova, M., Coker, J., Cole, R., Collura, A., Coriat, M., Cornelisse, R., Costamante, L., Cros, A., Cui, W., Cumming, A., Cusumano, G., Czerny, B., D'Aì, A., D'Ammando, F., D'Elia, V., Dai, Z., Del Monte, E., De Luca, A., De Martino, D., Dercksen, J. P. C., De Pasquale, M., De Rosa, A., Del Santo, M., Di Cosimo, S., Degenaar, N., den Herder, J. W., Diebold, S., Di Salvo, T., Dong, Y., Donnarumma, I., Doroshenko, V., Doyle, G., Drake, S. A., Durant, M., Emmanoulopoulos, D., Enoto, T., Erkut, M. H., Esposito, P., Evangelista, Y., Fabian, A., Falanga, M., Favre, Y., Feldman, C., Fender, R., Feng, H., Ferrari, V., Ferrigno, C., Finger, M. H., Fraser, G. W., Frericks, M., Fullekrug, M., Fuschino, F., Gabler, M., Galloway, D. K., Gálvez Sanchez, J. L., Gandhi, P., Gao, Z., Garcia-Berro, E., Gendre, B., Gevin, O., Gezari, S., Giles, A. B., Gilfanov, M., Giommi, P., Giovannini, G., Giroletti, M., Gogus, E., Goldwurm, A., Goluchová, K., Götz, D., Gou, L., Gouiffes, C., Grandi, P., Grassi, M., Greiner, J., Grinberg, V., Groot, P., Gschwender, M., Gualtieri, L., Guedel, M., Guidorzi, C., Guy, L., Haas, D., Haensel, P., Hailey, M., Hamuguchi, K., Hansen, F., Hartmann, D. H., Haswell, C. A., Hebeler, K., Heger, A., Hempel, M., Hermsen, W., Homan, J., Hornstrup, A., Hudec, R., Huovelin, J., Huppenkothen, D., Inam, S. C., Ingram, A., In't Zand, J. J. M., Israel, G., Iwasawa, K., Izzo, L., Jacobs, H. M., Jetter, F., Johannsen, T., Jenke, P. A., Jonker, P., Josè, J., Kaaret, P., Kalamkar, K., Kalemci, E., Kanbach, G., Karas, V., Karelin, D., Kataria, D., Keek, L., Kennedy, T., Klochkov, D., Kluzniak, W., Koerding, E., Kokkotas, K., Komossa, S., Korpela, S., Kouveliotou, C., Kowalski, A. F., Kreykenbohm, I., Kuiper, L. M., Kunneriath, D., Kurkela, A., Kuvvetli, I., La Franca, F., Labanti, C., Lai, D., Lamb, F. K., Lachaud, C., Laubert, P. P., Lebrun, F., Li, X., Liang, E., Limousin, O., Lin, D., Linares, M., Linder, D., Lodato, G., Longo, F., Lu, F., Lund, N., Maccarone, T. J., Macera, D., Maestre, S., Mahmoodifar, S., Maier, D., Malcovati, P., Malzac, J., Malone, C., Mandel, I., Mangano, V., Manousakis, A., Marelli, M., Margueron, J., Marisaldi, M., Markoff, S. B., Markowitz, A., Marinucci, A., Martindale, A., Martínez, G., McHardy, I. M., Medina-Tanco, G., Mehdipour, M., Melatos, A., Mendez, M., Mereghetti, S., Migliari, S., Mignani, R., Michalska, M., Mihara, T., Miller, J. M., Mineo, T., Miniutti, G., Morsink, S., Motch, C., Motta, S., Mouchet, M., Mouret, G., Mulacova, J. H., Muleri, F., Muñoz-Darias, T., Negueruela, I., Neilsen, J., Neubert, T., Norton, A. J., Nowak, M., Nucita, A., O'Brien, P., Oertel, M., Olsen, P. E. H., Orienti, M., Orio, M., Orlandini, M., Osborne, J. P., Osten, R., Ozel, F., Pacciani, L., Paerels, F., Paltani, S., Paolillo, M., Papadakis, I., Papitto, A., Paragi, Z., Paredes, J. M., Patruno, A., Paul, B., Pederiva, F., Perinati, E., Pellizzoni, A., Penacchioni, A. V., Peretz, U., Perez, M. A., Perez-Torres, M., Peterson, B. M., Petracek, V., Pittori, C., Pons, J., Portell, J., Possenti, A., Postnov, K., Poutanen, J., Prakash, M., Prandoni, I., Le Provost, H., Psaltis, D., Pye, J., Qu, J., Rambaud, D., Ramon, P., Ramsay, G., Rapisarda, M., Rashevski, A., Rashevskaya, I., Ray, P. S., Rea, N., Reddy, S., Reig, P., Reina Aranda, M., Remillard, R., Reynolds, C., Rezzolla, L., Ribo, M., de la Rie, R., Riggio, A., Rios, A., Rischke, D. H., Rodríguez-Gil, P., Rodriguez, J., Rohlfs, R., Romano, P., Rossi, E. M. R., Rozanska, A., Rousseau, A., Rudak, B., Russell, D. M., Ryde, F., Sabau-Graziati, L., Sakamoto, T., Sala, G., Salvaterra, R., Salvetti, D., Sanna, A., Sandberg, J., Savolainen, T., Scaringi, S., Schaffner-Bielich, J., Schatz, H., Schee, J., Schmid, C., Serino, M., Shakura, N., Shore, S., Schnittman, J. D., Schneider, R., Schwenk, A., Schwope, A. D., Sedrakian, A., Seyler, J.-Y., Shearer, A., Slowikowska, A., Sims, M., Smith, P. J., Sobolewska, M., Sochora, V., Soffitta, P., Soleri, P., Song, L., Spencer, A., Stamerra, A., Stappers, B., Staubert, R., Steiner, A. W., Stergioulas, N., Stevens, A. L., Stratta, G., Strohmayer, T. E., Stuchlik, Z., Suchy, S., Suleimanov, V., Tamburini, F., Tauris, T., Tavecchio, F., Tenzer, C., Thielemann, F. K., Tiengo, A., Tolos, L., Tombesi, F., Tomsick, J., Torok, G., Torrejon, J. M., Torres, D. F., Torresi, E., Tramacere, A., Traulsen, I., Trois, A., Turolla, R., Turriziani, S., Typel, S., Uter, P., Uttley, P., Vacchi, A., Varniere, P., Vaughan, S., Vercellone, S., Vietri, M., Vincent, F. H., Vrba, V., Walton, D., Wang, Z., Watanabe, S., Wawrzaszek, R., Webb, N., Weinberg, N., Wende, H., Wheatley, P., Wijers, R., Wijnands, R., Wille, M., Wilson-Hodge, C. A., Winter, B., Walk, S. J., Wood, K., Woosley, S. E., Wu, X., Xu, R., Yu, W., Yuan, Y., Zampa, N., Zampieri, L., Zdunik, L., Zdziarski, A., Zech, A., Zhang, S., Zingale, M. & Zwart, F., 2016, Proceedings of Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray. den Herder, J.-W. A., Takahashi, T. & Bautz, M. (eds.). SPIE - International Society for Optical Engineering, Vol. 9905. 20 p. 99051R

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    • High-energy radiation from thunderstorms and lightning with LOFT. White Paper in Support of the Mission Concept of the Large Observatory for X-ray Timing.

      Marisaldi, M., Smith, D. M., Brandt, S., Briggs, M. S., Budtz-Jørgensen, C., Campana, R., Carlson, B. E., Celestin, S., Connaughton, V., Cummer, S. A., Dwyer, J. R., Fishman, G. J., Fullekrug, M., Fuschino, F., Gjesteland, T., Neubert, T., Østgaard, N. & Tavani, M., 2015, Large Observatory For X-ray Timing. 10 p.

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