The eROSITA x-ray baffle

The X-ray baffle is an important part of the eROSITA mirror assembly as it reduces the stray light caused by single reflections at the Wolter 1 Mirrors by more than 90%. The stray light problem and possible solutions were analyzed by ray-tracing resulting in a trade-off between effective stray light protection and avoidance of vignetting. Possible design alternatives were considered and the influences of manufacturing tolerances were studied. Other than for XMM, the eROSITA X-ray baffle could not be realized as sieve plates; instead a system of co-aligned "baffle rings" was mounted onto each of the mirror modules. The mechanical design is based on concentric Invar foils fixed by an own spider. The complete X-ray baffles were finally mounted to the mirror module while the alignment was controlled by optical means.