Wide Field X-ray Telescope: Mission Overview
Abstract
The Wide Field X-Ray Telescope (WFXT) is a medium-class mission designed to be 2-orders-of-magnitude more sensitive than any previous or planned X-ray mission for large area surveys and to match in sensitivity the next generation of wide-area optical, IR and radio surveys. Using an innovative wide-field X-ray optics design, WFXT provides a field of view of 1 square degree (10 times Chandra) with an angular resolution of 5" (Half Energy Width, HEW) nearly constant over the entire field of view, and a large collecting area (up to 1 m^2 at 1 keV, > 10x Chandra) over the 0.1-7 keV band. WFXTs low-Earth orbit also minimizes the particle background. In five years of operation, WFXT will carry out three extragalactic surveys at unprecedented depth and address outstanding questions in astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics. In this article, we illustrate the mission concept and the connection between science requirements and mission parameters.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1010.6252,
title = {Wide Field X-ray Telescope: Mission Overview},
author = {P. Rosati and S. Borgani and R. Gilli and M. Paolillo and P. Tozzi and S. Murray and R. Giacconi and A. Ptak and M. Weisskopf and W. Forman and C. Jones and the WFXT Team},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1010.6252},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
Proceedings of "The Wide Field X-ray Telescope Workshop", held in Bologna, Italy, Nov. 25-26 2009. To appear in Memorie della Societ\`a Astronomica Italiana 2010 (arXiv:1010.5889)