The X-ray Integral Field Unit is the X-ray imaging spectrometer on-board one of ESA's next large missions, Athena. Athena is set to investigate the theme of the Hot and Energetic Universe, with a launch planned in the late-2030s. Based on a high sensitivity Transition Edge Sensor (TES) detector array operated at very low temperature (50 mK), X-IFU will provide spatially resolved high resolution spectroscopy of the X-ray sky in the 0.2-12 keV energy band, with an energy resolution goal of 4 eV up to 7 keV [3 eV design goal]. This paper presents the current calibration plan of the X-IFU. It provides the requirements applicable to the X-IFU calibration, describes the overall calibration strategy, and details the procedure and sources needed for the ground calibration of each parameter or characteristics of the X-IFU.
@article{arxiv.2507.01525,
title = {Ground calibration plan for the Athena/X-IFU microcalorimeter spectrometer},
author = {Alexeï Molin and François Pajot and Marc Audard and Marco Barbera and Sophie Beaumont and Edoardo Cucchetti and Matteo D'Andrea and Christophe Daniel and Roland den Hartog and Megan E. Eckart and Philippe Ferrando and Luciano Gottardi and Maurice Leutenegger and Simone Lotti and Lorenzo Natalucci and Philippe Peille and Jelle de Plaa and Etienne Pointecouteau and Scott Porter and Kosuke Sato and Joern Wilms and Vincent Albouys and Didier Barret and Massimo Cappi and Jan-Willem den Herder and Luigi Piro and Aurora Simionescu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.01525},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Submitted to the Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments and Systems (JATIS), 28 pages