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Register a new userThe LOFT Ground Segment
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E. Bozzo
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LOFT, the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing, was one of the ESA M3 mission candidates that completed their assessment phase at the end of 2013. LOFT is equipped with two instruments, the Large Area Detector (LAD) and the Wide Field Monitor (WFM). The LAD performs pointed observations of several targets per orbit (~90 minutes), providing roughly ~80 GB of proprietary data per day (the proprietary period will be 12 months). The WFM continuously monitors about 1/3 of the sky at a time and provides data for about ~100 sources a day, resulting in a total of ~20 GB of additional telemetry. The LOFT Burst alert System additionally identifies on-board bright impulsive events (e.g., Gamma-ray Bursts, GRBs) and broadcasts the corresponding position and trigger time to the ground using a dedicated system of ~15 VHF receivers. All WFM data are planned to be made public immediately. In this contribution we summarize the planned organization of the LOFT ground segment (GS), as established in the mission Yellow Book 1 . We describe the expected GS contributions from ESA and the LOFT consortium. A review is provided of the planned LOFT data products and the details of the data flow, archiving and distribution. Despite LOFT was not selected for launch within the M3 call, its long assessment phase (> 2 years) led to a very solid mission design and an efficient planning of its ground operations.
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LOFT, the large observatory for X-ray timing, is a new mission concept competing with other four candidates for a launch opportunity in 2022-2024. LOFT will be performing high-time resolution X-ray observations of compact objects, combining for the first time an unprecedented large collecting area for X-ray photons and a spectral resolution approaching that of CCD-based X-ray instruments (down to 200 eV FWHM at 6 keV). The operating energy range is 2-80 keV. The main science goals of LOFT are the measurement of the neutron stars equation of states and the test of General Relativity in the strong field regime. The breakthrough capabilities of the instruments on-board LOFT will permit to open also new discovery windows for a wide range of Galactic and extragalactic X-ray sources. In this contribution, we provide a general description of the mission concept and summarize its main scientific capabilities.
The LOFT mission concept is one of four candidates selected by ESA for the M3 launch opportunity as Medium Size missions of the Cosmic Vision programme. The launch window is currently planned for between 2022 and 2024. LOFT is designed to exploit the diagnostics of rapid X-ray flux and spectral variability that directly probe the motion of matter down to distances very close to black holes and neutron stars, as well as the physical state of ultra-dense matter. These primary science goals will be addressed by a payload composed of a Large Area Detector (LAD) and a Wide Field Monitor (WFM). The LAD is a collimated (<1 degree field of view) experiment operating in the energy range 2-50 keV, with a 10 m^2 peak effective area and an energy resolution of 260 eV at 6 keV. The WFM will operate in the same energy range as the LAD, enabling simultaneous monitoring of a few-steradian wide field of view, with an angular resolution of <5 arcmin. The LAD and WFM experiments will allow us to investigate variability from submillisecond QPOs to year-long transient outbursts. In this paper we report the current status of the project.
The Large Observatory for X-ray Timing (LOFT) is one of the five mission candidates that were considered by ESA for an M3 mission (with a launch opportunity in 2022 - 2024). LOFT features two instruments: the Large Area Detector (LAD) and the Wide Field Monitor (WFM). The LAD is a 10 m 2 -class instrument with approximately 15 times the collecting area of the largest timing mission so far (RXTE) for the first time combined with CCD-class spectral resolution. The WFM will continuously monitor the sky and recognise changes in source states, detect transient and bursting phenomena and will allow the mission to respond to this. Observing the brightest X-ray sources with the effective area of the LAD leads to enormous data rates that need to be processed on several levels, filtered and compressed in real-time already on board. The WFM data processing on the other hand puts rather low constraints on the data rate but requires algorithms to find the photon interaction location on the detector and then to deconvolve the detector image in order to obtain the sky coordinates of observed transient sources. In the following, we want to give an overview of the data handling concepts that were developed during the study phase.
LOFT (Large Observatory For x-ray Timing) is one of the ESA M3 missions selected within the Cosmic Vision program in 2011 to carry out an assessment phase study and compete for a launch opportunity in 2022-2024. The phase-A studies of all M3 missions were completed at the end of 2013. LOFT is designed to carry on-board two instruments with sensitivity in the 2-50 keV range: a 10 m 2 class Large Area Detector (LAD) with a <1{deg} collimated FoV and a wide field monitor (WFM) making use of coded masks and providing an instantaneous coverage of more than 1/3 of the sky. The prime goal of the WFM will be to detect transient sources to be observed by the LAD. However, thanks to its unique combination of a wide field of view (FoV) and energy resolution (better than 500 eV), the WFM will be also an excellent monitoring instrument to study the long term variability of many classes of X-ray sources. The WFM consists of 10 independent and identical coded mask cameras arranged in 5 pairs to provide the desired sky coverage. We provide here an overview of the instrument design, configuration, and capabilities of the LOFT WFM. The compact and modular design of the WFM could easily make the instrument concept adaptable for other missions.
The Large Observatory For X-ray Timing (LOFT), currently in an assessment phase in the framework the ESA M3 Cosmic Vision programme, is an innovative medium-class mission specifically designed to answer fundamental questions about the behaviour of matter, in the very strong gravitational and magnetic fields around compact objects and in supranuclear density conditions. Having an effective area of ~10 m^2 at 8 keV, LOFT will be able to measure with high sensitivity very fast variability in the X-ray fluxes and spectra. A good knowledge of the in-orbit background environment is essential to assess the scientific performance of the mission and optimize the design of its main instrument, the Large Area Detector (LAD). In this paper the results of an extensive Geant-4 simulation of the instrument will be discussed, showing the main contributions to the background and the design solutions for its reduction and control. Our results show that the current LOFT/LAD design is expected to meet its scientific requirement of a background rate equivalent to 10 mCrab in 2-30 keV, achieving about 5 mCrab in the most important 2-10 keV energy band. Moreover, simulations show an anticipated modulation of the background rate as small as 10% over the orbital timescale. The intrinsic photonic origin of the largest background component also allows for an efficient modelling, supported by an in-flight active monitoring, allowing to predict systematic residuals significantly better than the requirement of 1%, and actually meeting the 0.25% science goal.
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