The Wide Field Imager for the Athena X-ray Observatory

    Project Details

    Description

    The WFI is one of the two scientific instruments proposed for Athena, the mission selected to address the “Hot and Energetic Universe” science theme identified by ESA (Athena@ESA) for its L2 large satellite mission with launch in 2028.
    The WFI will provide imaging in the 0.2-15 keV energy band over a wide field, simultaneously with spectrally and time-resolved photon counting. The instrument is designed to make optimal use of the grasp (product of collecting area and solid angle) provided by the optical design of the ATHENA mirror system, by combining a sensitive approx. 40’x40' field of view DEPFET detector with a pixel size properly sampling the angular resolution of 5’’ on-axis (half energy width).
    AcronymWFI
    StatusActive
    Effective start/end date28/03/2014 → 01/01/2035

    Collaborative partners

    • Technical University of Denmark
    • University of Leicester (Project partner)
    • Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (Project partner)
    • MPE (Project partner) (lead)
    • Pennsylvania State University (Project partner)
    • National Institute for Astrophysics (Project partner)
    • Space Research Center PAS (Project partner)
    • Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics (Project partner)
    • French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (Project partner)
    • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (Project partner)
    • University of Vienna (Project partner)
    • Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica di Bologna (Project partner)
    • Polish Academy of Sciences (Project partner)
    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Project partner)
    • The Open University (Project partner)
    • IAA-Tuebingen (Project partner)

    Keywords

    • X-ray astronomy

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    • 1 Article in proceedings

    • WFI electronics and on-board data processing

      Plattner, M., Albrecht, S., Bayer, J., Brandt, S., Drumm, P., Hälker, O., Kerschbaum, F., Koch, A., Kuvvetli, I., Meidinger, N., Ott, S., Ottensamer, R., Reiffers, J., Schanz, T., Skup, K., Steller, M., Tenzer, C. & Thomas, C., 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. 9 p. 99052D

      Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

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