Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT) Instrument on-board AstroSat, an Indian Space-Based multi-wavelength observatory

Sunil Chandra
(K.P. Singh, Sudip Bhattacharyya, Gulab Dewangan, Markus Boettcher and SXT Team)

Abstract:

Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT) is a focusing X-ray telescope with focal length of 2m and is mainly effective in 0.3-10.0 keV energy band. It is one of the major instruments on-board first Indian multi-wavelength observatory 'AstroSat'. Note that other instruments are Large Area Proportional Counters (LAXPC; E~3-80 keV), Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride Imager (CZTI; E~10-120 keV), UV Imaging Telescope (UVIT; simultaneous access of VIS, NUV and FUV channels) and Sky Scanning Monitor (SSM; 2-10 keV). Combining all the on-axis instruments, AstroSat provides simultaneous access of a broad energy spectrum which is very crucial for many scientific objectives. SXT, with the two different modes of observing, provides a good control on handling bright sources, which may be affected by huge pile-up otherwise. In this meeting I will be presenting the salient features of SXT instrument, capability of AstroSat in general, prospects of utilizing this facility for multi-wavelength studies and few preliminary results from a range of scientific interests of our group.