A. F. Abbey

The European Photon Imaging Camera on XMM-Newton: The MOS cameras

The EPIC focal plane imaging spectrometers on XMM-Newton use CCDs to record the images and spectra of celestial X-ray sources focused by the three X-ray mirrors. There is one camera at the focus of each mirror; two of the cameras contain seven MOS CCDs, while the third uses twelve PN CCDs, dening a circular eld of view of 30 0 diameter in each case. The CCDs were specially developed for EPIC, and combine high quality imaging with spectral resolution close to the Fano limit. A lter wheel carrying three kinds of X-ray transparent light blocking lter, a fully closed, and a fully open position, is tted to each EPIC instrument. The CCDs are cooled passively and are under full closed loop thermal control. A radio-active source is tted for internal calibration. Data are processed on-board to save telemetry by removing cosmic ray tracks, and generating X-ray event les; a variety of dierent instrument modes are available to increase the dynamic range of the instrument and to enable fast timing. The instruments were calibrated using laboratory X-ray beams, and synchrotron generated monochromatic X-ray beams before launch; in-orbit calibration makes use of a variety of celestial X-ray targets. The current calibration is better than 10% over the entire energy range of 0.2 to 10 keV. All three instruments survived launch and are performing nominally in orbit. In particular full eld-of-view coverage is available, all electronic modes work, and the energy resolution is close to pre-launch values. Radiation damage is well within pre-launch predictions and does not yet impact on the energy resolution. The scientic results from EPIC amply full pre-launch expectations.

A new measurement of the cosmic X-ray background

This work is supported at OAB-INAF by ASI grant I/011/07/0, at PSU by NASA contract NAS5-00136. A.A., A.B., O.G. and J.O. acknowledge STFC funding.

New light on the X-ray spectrum of the Crab Nebula

XMM-Newton observations of the Crab provide new information on its integrated X-ray spectrum and the variation of the spectral form across the nebula. The Crab pulsar and its surrounding torus exhibit the hardest spectra with power-law indices of

Modelling the spectral response of the Swift-XRT CCD camera: experience learnt from in-flight calibration

\Gamma = 1.6

The X-ray energy response of silicon (B): Measurements

and 1.8. The jet and outer reaches of the nebula are significantly softer with

In-flight calibration of the Swift XRT point spread function

\Gamma = 2.1

The effect of proton damage on the X-ray spectral response of MOS CCDs for the Swift X-ray telescope

and 2.3 respectively. For the whole nebula, the huge number of recorded counts allows a detailed examination of the soft X-ray absorption due to cool gas in the foreground of the Crab. Absorption edges due to oxygen and neon are clearly identified. Oxygen and iron in the interstellar medium are underabundant by a factor of

The swift-XRT imaging performances and serendipitous survey

0.63 \pm 0.01

The impact of low energy proton damage on the operational characteristics of EPIC-MOS CCDs

. The average

Effects of micrometeoroid and space debris impacts in grazing incidence telescopes

N_{\rm H}=3.45\pm0.02 10^{21}