The Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager

Details The Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager The Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21347508g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #475.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.436

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The Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI) is a NASA Low Cost Access to Space sounding rocket payload scheduled to fly in late 2010 to observe hard X-ray emission (HXR) from the quiet Sun. Particle acceleration in small "nanoflares" in the quiet Sun is thought to play an important role in the heating of the corona to millions of degrees Kelvin. FOXSI HXR observations of these flares will provide first estimates of the non-thermal energy content in small flares from the quiet Sun.
Imaging nanoflares requires high energy sensitivity and a large dynamic range. To date, the most sensitive HXR images are made using a rotating modulating collimator aboard the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Spectroscopic Imager satellite (RHESSI). However, the rotating modulation technique is intrinsically limited in sensitivity and dynamic range.
The focusing optics of FOXSI will achieve a sensitivity 100 times better than that of RHESSI at energies around 10 keV. FOXSI uses nested-shell, grazing-angle optics and silicon strip detectors to achieve an angular resolution of 12" (FWHM) and 1 keV energy resolution. FOXSI will observe the quiet Sun in the 4 to 15 keV range for 5 minutes. The focusing optics technique developed by FOXSI will prove useful to future solar HXR observing missions, especially those interested in imaging faint HXR emission from particle acceleration regions in the corona.

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