The Hot and Energetic Universe: The Optical Design of the Athena+ Mirror

Understand

The Athena+ X-ray mirror will provide a collecting area of 2 m^2 at 1 keV and an angular resolution of 5 arc seconds Half Energy Width.

• The manufacture and performance of this mirror is of paramount importance to the success of the mission.
• In order to provide the large collecting area a single aperture of diameter ~3 m must be densely populated with grazing incidence X-ray optics and to achieve the high angular resolution these optics must be of extremely high precision and aligned to tight tolerances.
• A large field of view of ~40 arc minutes diameter is possible using a combination of innovative technology and careful optical design.