The x-ray mirror telescope and the pn-CCD detector of CAST

Markus Kuster; Heinrich Braeuninger; Jakob Englhauser; Peter Friedrich; Robert Hartmann; Rainer Kotthaus; Gerhard Lutz; W. Serber; Lothar Strueder; Donghwa Kang; Juergen Franz; J. Moralez

doi:10.1117/12.551652

29 September 2004 The x-ray mirror telescope and the pn-CCD detector of CAST

Markus Kuster, Heinrich Braeuninger, Jakob Englhauser, Peter Friedrich, Robert Hartmann, Rainer Kotthaus, Gerhard Lutz, W. Serber, Lothar Strueder, Donghwa Kang, Juergen Franz, J. Moralez

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 5500, Gravitational Wave and Particle Astrophysics Detectors; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.551652
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2004, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Abstract

The Cern Axion Solar Telescope - CAST - uses a prototype 9 Tesla LHC superconducting dipole magnet to search for a hypothetical pseudoscalar particle, the axion, which was proposed by theory in the 1980s to solve the strong CP problem and which could be a dark matter candidate. In CAST a strong magnetic field is used to convert the solar axions to detectable photons via inverse Primakoff effect. The resulting X-rays are thermally distributed in the energy range of 1-7 keV and can be observed with conventional X-ray detectors. The most sensitive detector system of CAST is a pn-CCD detector originally developed for XMM-Newton combined with a Wolter I type X-ray mirror system. The combination of a focusing X-ray optics and a state of the art pn-CCD detector which combines high quantum efficiency, good spacial and energy resolution, and low background improves the sensitivity of the CAST experiment such that for the first time the axion photon coupling constant can be probed beyond the best astrophysical constraints. In this paper we report on the performance and status of the X-ray telescope and pn-CCD detector of CAST.

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Markus Kuster, Heinrich Braeuninger, Jakob Englhauser, Peter Friedrich, Robert Hartmann, Rainer Kotthaus, Gerhard Lutz, W. Serber, Lothar Strueder, Donghwa Kang, Juergen Franz, and J. Moralez "The x-ray mirror telescope and the pn-CCD detector of CAST", Proc. SPIE 5500, Gravitational Wave and Particle Astrophysics Detectors, (29 September 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.551652

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