HEX-P is an x-ray probe-class mission concept that will combine high angular resolution (⪅15 arcsec) with broad band spectral coverage (0.2 - 80 keV) to enable revolutionary new insights into the important astrophysical questions of the next decade identified by the 2020 Decadal Survey. Sensitivity is key to the instrument performance and estimating the background a crucial step in the development of the design and prediction of the instrument performance. The HEX-P orbit is at L1, and since L1 has hosted no prior missions with x-ray coverage that can be used to estimate the background level, the particle background has to be simulated. We present here the simulations done to evaluate the contribution to the background from charged particles, which show that the high energy background is dominated by hadronic activation in the detector mass and prompt leptons. To reduce the additional Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB), which is non-charged, the instruments are fitted with apertures and blocking plates of a graded-Z material to attenuate the CXB to a level an order of magnitude below the requirement.
The All-sky Medium Energy Gamma-ray Observatory eXplorer (AMEGO-X) is designed to identify and characterize gamma rays from extreme explosions and accelerators. The main science themes include supermassive black holes and their connections to neutrinos and cosmic rays; binary neutron star mergers and the relativistic jets they produce; cosmic ray particle acceleration sources including galactic supernovae; continuous monitoring of other astrophysical events and sources over the full sky in this important energy range. AMEGO-X will probe the medium energy gamma-ray band using a single instrument with sensitivity up to an order of magnitude greater than previous telescopes in the energy range 100 keV to 1 GeV that can be only realized in space. During its 3-year baseline mission, AMEGO-X will observe nearly the entire sky every two orbits, building up a sensitive all-sky map of gamma-ray sources and emissions. AMEGO-X was submitted in the recent 2021 NASA MIDEX announcement of opportunity.
Space-based γ-ray telescopes such as the Fermi Large Area Telescope have used single sided silicon strip detectors to track secondary charged particles produced by primary γ-rays with high resolution. At the lower energies targeted by keV-MeV telescopes, two dimensional position information within a single detector is required for event reconstruction—especially in the Compton regime. This work describes the development of monolithic CMOS active pixel silicon sensors—AstroPix—as a novel technology for use in future γ-ray telescopes. Based upon sensors (ATLASPix) designed for use in the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, AstroPix has the potential to maintain high performance while reducing noise with low power consumption. This is achieved with the dual detection and readout capabilities in each CMOS pixel. The status of AstroPix development and testing, as well as outlook for future testing and application, will be presented.
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