Performance assessment of different pulse reconstruction algorithms for the ATHENA X-ray Integral Field Unit

Philippe Peille; Maria Teresa Ceballos; Beatriz Cobo; Joern Wilms; Simon Bandler; Stephen J. Smith; Thomas Dauser; Thorsten Brand; Roland den Hartog; Jelle de Plaa; Didier Barret; Jan-Willem den Herder; Luigi Piro; Xavier Barcons; Etienne Pointecouteau

doi:10.1117/12.2232011

11 July 2016 Performance assessment of different pulse reconstruction algorithms for the ATHENA X-ray Integral Field Unit

Philippe Peille, Maria Teresa Ceballos, Beatriz Cobo, Joern Wilms, Simon Bandler, Stephen J. Smith, Thomas Dauser, Thorsten Brand, Roland den Hartog, Jelle de Plaa, Didier Barret, Jan-Willem den Herder, Luigi Piro, Xavier Barcons, Etienne Pointecouteau

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9905, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 99055W (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232011
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Abstract

The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) microcalorimeter, on-board Athena, with its focal plane comprising 3840 Transition Edge Sensors (TESs) operating at 90 mK, will provide unprecedented spectral-imaging capability in the 0.2-12 keV energy range. It will rely on the on-board digital processing of current pulses induced by the heat deposited in the TES absorber, as to recover the energy of each individual events. Assessing the capabilities of the pulse reconstruction is required to understand the overall scientific performance of the X-IFU, notably in terms of energy resolution degradation with both increasing energies and count rates. Using synthetic data streams generated by the X-IFU End-to-End simulator, we present here a comprehensive benchmark of various pulse reconstruction techniques, ranging from standard optimal filtering to more advanced algorithms based on noise covariance matrices. Beside deriving the spectral resolution achieved by the different algorithms, a first assessment of the computing power and ground calibration needs is presented. Overall, all methods show similar performances, with the reconstruction based on noise covariance matrices showing the best improvement with respect to the standard optimal filtering technique. Due to prohibitive calibration needs, this method might however not be applicable to the X-IFU and the best compromise currently appears to be the so-called resistance space analysis which also features very promising high count rate capabilities.

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Philippe Peille, Maria Teresa Ceballos, Beatriz Cobo, Joern Wilms, Simon Bandler, Stephen J. Smith, Thomas Dauser, Thorsten Brand, Roland den Hartog, Jelle de Plaa, Didier Barret, Jan-Willem den Herder, Luigi Piro, Xavier Barcons, and Etienne Pointecouteau "Performance assessment of different pulse reconstruction algorithms for the ATHENA X-ray Integral Field Unit", Proc. SPIE 9905, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 99055W (11 July 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232011

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