Simulating x-ray observations of galaxy clusters with the x-ray integral field unit onboard the ATHENA mission

Edoardo Cucchetti; Etienne Pointecouteau; Philippe Peille; Nicolas Clerc; Elena Rasia; Veronica Biffi; Stefano Borgani; Klaus Dolag; Jörn Wilms; François Pajot; Didier Barret

doi:10.1117/12.2311957

6 July 2018 Simulating x-ray observations of galaxy clusters with the x-ray integral field unit onboard the ATHENA mission

Edoardo Cucchetti, Etienne Pointecouteau, Philippe Peille, Nicolas Clerc, Elena Rasia, Veronica Biffi, Stefano Borgani, Klaus Dolag, Jörn Wilms, François Pajot, Didier Barret

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10699, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 106994L (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2311957
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, United States

Abstract

The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) is the cryogenic imaging spectrometer onboard the ESA L2 mission Athena. With its array of almost 3840 superconducting Transition Edge Sensors micro-calorimeters, the X-IFU will provide spatially resolved (5" over the field of view) high-resolution spectroscopy (2.5 eV FWHM up to 7 keV) in the 0.2-12 keV energy band. These transformational capabilities will allow the X-IFU to probe the Hot and Energetic Universe, and notably measure the physical properties of large-scale structures with unprecedented accuracy. Starting from numerically-simulated massive (1014M) galaxy clusters at different steps of their evolution, we investigate the capabilities of the X-IFU in recovering chemical abundances, redshift and gas temperature spatial distributions across time, making use of full field-of-view End-To-End simulations of X-IFU observations. This work serve as feasibility study for the Chemical Enrichment of the Universe science objective. We show that using 100 ks observations, the X-IFU will provide an unprecedented spatially-accurate knowledge of the physics of the ICM (abundances, temperature, bulk-motion). We also demonstrate that challenges related to the data analysis of extended sources with very high-resolution spectrometers (e.g. binning, line of sight mixing, particle background) need to be thoroughly addressed to maximise the science of the instrument.

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Edoardo Cucchetti, Etienne Pointecouteau, Philippe Peille, Nicolas Clerc, Elena Rasia, Veronica Biffi, Stefano Borgani, Klaus Dolag, Jörn Wilms, François Pajot, and Didier Barret "Simulating x-ray observations of galaxy clusters with the x-ray integral field unit onboard the ATHENA mission", Proc. SPIE 10699, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 106994L (6 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2311957

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