23 February 2021 Progress toward optimizing energy and arrival-time resolution with a transition-edge sensor from simulations of x-ray-photon events
Paul Ripoche, Jeremy Heyl
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Superconducting transition-edge sensors (TESs) carried by x-ray telescopes are powerful tools for the study of neutron stars and black holes. Several methods, such as optimal filtering or principal component analysis, have already been developed to analyze x-ray data from these sensors. However, these techniques may be hard to implement in space. Our goal is to develop a lower-computational-cost technique that optimizes energy and time resolution when x-ray photons are detected by a TES. Current pulses, in TESs, exhibit a non-linear response to photon energy. Therefore, at low energies, we focus on the current-pulse height, whereas at high energies, we consider the current-pulse width, to retrieve energy and arrival time of x-ray photons. For energies between 0.1 and 30 keV and with a sampling rate of 195 kHz, we obtain an energy resolution (full-width at half-maximum) between 1.32 and 2.98 eV. We also get an arrival-time resolution (full-duration at half-maximum) between 163 and 3.85 ns. To improve the accuracy of these results, it will be essential to get a thorough description of non-stationary noise in a TES and develop a robust on-board identification method of pile-up events.

© 2021 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) 2329-4124/2021/$28.00 © 2021 SPIE
Paul Ripoche and Jeremy Heyl "Progress toward optimizing energy and arrival-time resolution with a transition-edge sensor from simulations of x-ray-photon events," Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 7(1), 018002 (23 February 2021). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.7.1.018002
Received: 7 January 2020; Accepted: 20 January 2021; Published: 23 February 2021
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KEYWORDS
Photons

Sensors

X-rays

Interference (communication)

X-ray telescopes

Resistance

Superconductors

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