Reducing the ATHENA WFI background with the science products module: lessons from Chandra ACIS

Catherine E. Grant; Eric D. Miller; Marshall W. Bautz; Esra Bulbul; Ralph P. Kraft; Paul Nulsen; David N. Burrows; Steven Allen

doi:10.1117/12.2313864

6 July 2018 Reducing the ATHENA WFI background with the science products module: lessons from Chandra ACIS

Catherine E. Grant, Eric D. Miller, Marshall W. Bautz, Esra Bulbul, Ralph P. Kraft, Paul Nulsen, David N. Burrows, Steven Allen

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10699, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 106994H (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313864
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, United States

Abstract

The Wide Field Imager (WFI) on ESA’s Athena X-ray observatory will include the Science Products Module, a secondary CPU that can perform special processing on the science data stream. Our goal is to identify on-board processing algorithms that can reduce WFI charged particle background and improve knowledge of the background to reduce systematics. Telemetry limitations require discarding most pixels on-board, keeping just candidate X-ray events, but information in the discarded data may be helpful in identifying background events masquerading as X-ray events. We present full frame data from CCDs on-board Chandra, in high-Earth orbit, and the results of our search for phenomenological correlations between particle tracks and background events that would otherwise be categorized as X-rays. In addition to possibly reducing the Athena instrumental background, these results are applicable to understanding the particle component in any X-ray Silicon-based detector in space.

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Catherine E. Grant, Eric D. Miller, Marshall W. Bautz, Esra Bulbul, Ralph P. Kraft, Paul Nulsen, David N. Burrows, and Steven Allen "Reducing the ATHENA WFI background with the science products module: lessons from Chandra ACIS", Proc. SPIE 10699, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 106994H (6 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313864

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