LOFT, the large observatory for X-ray timing, was selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) in February 2011 as one of four medium size mission concepts for the Cosmic Vision program that will compete for a launch opportunity in the early 2020s. LOFT will carry out high-time resolution (10 {\mu}s) and spectroscopic observations (<260 eV) of compact objects in the X-ray band (2-80 keV), with unprecedented throughput, thanks to its 10 m^2 effective area. LOFT will address the fundamental questions of the Cosmic Vision Theme "Matter under extreme conditions": What is the fundamental equation of state of a compact object? Does matter orbiting close to the event horizon follow the predictions of general relativity?
@article{arxiv.1210.2357,
title = {LOFT: the Large Observatory for X-ray Timing},
author = {E. Bozzo and P. Esposito and P. Romano},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1210.2357},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
Proceedings of the Thirteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting; 2 pages, 2 figures