In-orbit performance of WXM (Wide-Field X-Ray Monitor)

The Wide-field X-ray Monitor (WXM) is one of the three main scientific instruments on HETE-2, and is designed to measure the light curves, spectra, and locations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and other transients in the energy range of 2-25 keV. It consists of Xe-filled 1-D position-sensitive proportio...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kawai, N, Yoshida, A, Matsuoka, M, Shirasaki, Y, Tamagawa, T, Torii, K, Sakamoto, T, Takahashi, D, Fenimore, E, Galassi, M
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The Wide-field X-ray Monitor (WXM) is one of the three main scientific instruments on HETE-2, and is designed to measure the light curves, spectra, and locations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and other transients in the energy range of 2-25 keV. It consists of Xe-filled 1-D position-sensitive proportional counters equipped with two 1-D coded apertures in orthogonal directions with a field of view of 40 deg OE 40 deg . The sophisticated onboard processing allows the localization of GRBs in real time with 10 arcmin accuracy based on the alerts from FREGATE, the gamma-ray detector. The WXM also triggers on its own count time history with a flexible algorithm and can localize X-ray events on various time scales. We present the design and basic characteristics of the detectors, the handling of the data, the in-flight performance, and some of the early observations.
ISSN:0094-243X