SuperAGILE: the X-ray Monitor of the AGILE gamma-ray Mission

M. Feroci; E. Costa; E. Del Monte; I. Lapshov; M. Mastropietro; E. Morelli; M. Rapisarda; A. Rubini; P. Soffitta; G. Barbiellini; F. Longo; M. Prest; E. Vallazza; A. Argan; S. Mereghetti; M. Tavani; S. Vercellone; A. Morselli

arXiv · astro-ph/0101154

SuperAGILE: the X-ray Monitor of the AGILE gamma-ray Mission

M. Feroci·E. Costa·E. Del Monte·I. Lapshov·M. Mastropietro·E. Morelli·M. Rapisarda·A. Rubini·P. Soffitta·G. Barbiellini·F. Longo·M. Prest·E. Vallazza·A. Argan·S. Mereghetti·M. Tavani·S. Vercellone·A. Morselli

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Abstract

SuperAGILE is the X-ray stage of the AGILE gamma-ray mission. It is devoted to monitor X-ray (10-40 keV) sources with a sensitivity better than 10 mCrabs in 50 ks and to detect X-ray transients in a field of view of 1.8 sr, well matched to that of the gamma-ray tracker, with few arc-minutes position resolution and better than 5 us timing resolution. SuperAGILE is designed to exploit one additional layer of four Si microstrip detectors placed on top of the AGILE tracker, and a system of four mutually orthogonal one-dimensional coded masks to encode the X-ray sky. The total geometric area is 1444 cm^2. Low noise electronics based on ASIC technology composes the front-end read out. We present here the instrumental and astrophysical performances of SuperAGILE as derived by analytical calculations, Monte Carlo simulations and experimental tests on a prototype of the silicon microstrip detector and front-end electronics.

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M. Feroci, E. Costa, E. Del Monte, I. Lapshov, M. Mastropietro, E. Morelli, M. Rapisarda, A. Rubini, P. Soffitta, G. Barbiellini, F. Longo, M. Prest, E. Vallazza, A. Argan, S. Mereghetti, M. Tavani, S. Vercellone, A. Morselli. 2001-01-10. SuperAGILE: the X-ray Monitor of the AGILE gamma-ray Mission. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0101154

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