A Modified Kirkpatrick-Baez Design for a Practical Astronomical X-ray Telescope
Abstract
Kirkpatrick-Baez (K-B) optics offer a means of imaging soft x-rays with modest resolution and a multi-arc-minute field of view at a cost far below the conventional Wolter design. Such a low-cost system could be useful for dedicated, long time-line observation of astronomical x-ray sources from orbit. A K-B telescope consists of crossed arrays of parabolic mirrors at grazing incidence. The classic K-B design is subject to significant aberration, arising from interplay between the focusing of the fore and aft mirror arrays. We demonstrate here a modified K-B design with aberrations reduced by an order of magnitude. We show, furthermore, that it is possible to construct such a system by constraining flat "slats" of commercially-available glass in precision machined grooves. The slats deform into shapes which adequately approximate the optimal figures, thereby yielding focusing better than the best version of the classic K-B design. The result is a new approach that greatly simplifies the task of achieving both useful resolution and high effective area for x-ray astronomy applications.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #234
- Pub Date:
- June 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AAS...23430101L