Monitor of All sky X-ray Image (MAXI)

1
Monitor of All sky X-ray Image (MAXI) on the
International Space Station JAXA, RIKEN,Osaka
Univ., Aoyama Gakuin Univ., Tokyo Inst. of Tech.,
Nihon Univ. E-mail tomida.hiroshi _at_ jaxa.jp Web
http//www-maxi.tksc.jaxa.jp
1. What is MAXI ?
2. X-ray camera on MAXI

• All sky X-ray monitor on the Japanese Experiment
  Module (JEM) Exposed Facility of the
  International Space Station (ISS)
• Scan of all most all over the sky every 90
  minutes. No pointing observation.
• Launch 2008 by the Space shuttle
• Mission life at least 2 years

ISS
A concept of slit camera
Field of view of MAXI
ISS motion
JEM
ISS

• MAXI has two types of X-ray camera
• Gas Slit Camera (GSC) and Solid-state Slit
  Camera (SSC)
• Both cameras consist of 2 subsets. One has FOV
  looking zenith direction, and another is forward,
  in order to compensate non-operational periods
  (e.g. SAA)
• Each subset consists of slits, slat collimators,
  and 1-dimensional position sensitive X-ray
  detectors.
• Their combination provides a narrow rectangular
  field of view (FOV) in the sky.

Pressurized Vessel
MAXI
Exposed Facility
3. SCIENCE
X-ray flux of known sources (taken from Uhuru and
HEAO-1 catalog)
Galactic sources AGNs ? Clusters of galaxies
X-ray flux (mCrab)
10 mCrab / 1 orbit (96min.)
3 mCrab / 1 day
1 mCrab / 1 week
Sensitivity of MAXI
Distance (light year)
MAXI detects more than 1000 X-ray sources,
including many active galactic nuclei (AGNs)
2. 1 Gas Slit Camera (GSC)
proportional counter
A unit of GSC

• Dynamic Catalog of X-ray sources
• Long-term variability of AGNs
• Alert of X-ray transients
• Complete lightcurve of X-ray novae
• g-ray bursts and their afterglow
• Distribution of distant AGNs (measurement of
  X-ray BGD)
• Survey of emission lines from our Galaxy (with
  CCD camera)
• Discovery of new kinds of X-ray objects

A Simulated Light curve MCG 6-30-15
Simulated all sky X-ray images, to be obtained
with MAXI
Slit and collimator

• Three units for forward camera, and three for
  Zenith.
• Wide FOV 1.5 x 160 degree
• Carbon fiber anode (10 mm)
• ?Good position resolution (1mm)
• Large Effective Area (5350 cm2)
• ?High Sensitivity (1 mCrab/week)

Slit
Collimator
2 week
1 day
Data flow of MAXI
NASA MSFC

• 50-70 of MAXI date is sent to ground in real
  time.
• All the data will be made accessible through the
  Internet.
• New discoveries (e.g. X-ray novae) are informed
  through the Internet in 1 minutes

ISS
(A picture from the counter side)
NASA Link
2. 2 Solid-state Slit Camera (SSC)
JAXA Link
A unit of SSC (without slit and collimator)
SSC spectra of emission lines
JAXA
Data relay satellite
MAXI
Al-Ka 1.4876
Ti-Ka 4.51084
Cl-Ka 2.62239
V-Ka 4.95220
Quick follow up observations !!
Zn-Ka 8.63886
Fe-Ka 6.4038
V-Kb 5.42729
Ni-Ka 7.47815
Cl-Kb 2.8156
Fe-Kb 7.05798
Zn-Kb 9.5720
Ni-Kb 8.26466
data archive system
update Comment
light curve real time Non-X-ray background data (NXB) is distributed
spectrum every day Detector response and NXB are distributed.
all-sky image every day exposure corrected
CCD Chip (Hamamatsu Photonics)
You can obtain above data for major bright
objects and any point of X-ray sky
Detail ? poster by Namiki et al.
24 mm