The LOFT mission: new perspectives in the research field of (accreting) compact objects

Understand

LOFT, the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing, is one of five ESA M3 candidate missions.

• It will address the Cosmic Vision theme: "Matter under Extreme Conditions".
• By coupling for the first time a huge collecting area for the detection of X-ray photons with CCD-quality spectral resolution (15 times bigger in area than any previously flown X-ray instrument and >100 times bigger for spectroscopy than any similar-resolution instrument), the instruments on-board LOFT have been designed to (i) determine the properties of ultradense matter by reconstructing its Equation of State through neutron star mass and radius measurements of unprecedented accuracy; (ii) measure General Relativity effects in the strong field regime in the stationary spacetimes of neutron stars and black holes of all masses down to a few gravitational radii.
• Besides the above two themes, LOFT's observations will be devoted to "observatory science", providing new insights in a number of research fields in high energy astrophysics (e.g.