TNA Status & Selected Results

As for the end of April 2023 the AHEAD2020 TNA facility has received 10 proposals. One of them it has been considered unfeasible for technical reason while the other 9 proposals have been approved. In most cases  a preparatory visit has also been part of the approved accesses.  So far access has been granted to 3 of the 6 offered facilities. Two of  guest teams are  “mixed” groups with researchers inside and outside AHEAD2020,  1 PI (for 2 proposals) and 1 Co-I are from two Finland SMEs, 1 PI is from non-EU & associated country. The BABE facility has been asked by 5 proposals for about 36 working days; in person access is clearly preferred;  so far 2 proposals have been performed in remote TNA access, and 1 visit is still to be performed.  The CSL Shaker has been  asked by 2 proposal for about 10 working days, 1 visit is still to be performed and the two PIs have both asked for “in person” access. The approved proposals to access LARIX have asked  for about 12 days (incl. Prep. Visits), the visits have been deferred to the summer of 2023 for delays in the availability of the guest team hardware, the two PIs have asked for  “in person” visit.

  • TNA accesses to BABE and to CSL Shaker has had major synergies with the technological program (cf. AHEAD2020 JRA task) devoted to the development of sophisticated filters for X-ray detectors (M. Barbera, U. Lo Cicero, L. Sciortino, M. Todaro, E. Puccio, F. D’Anca, N. Montinaro, S. Varisco, P. T. Törmä, L. Riuttanen, I. Varjos, B. Mikladal, E. Magnano, I. Pis, C. Gollwitzer, E. Handick, M. Krumrey, Cz. Laubis, “Carbon nanotubes thin filters for x-ray detectors in space” Proceedings of SPIE – The International Society for Optical Engineering, 2022, 12181, 121814H). The performed measurements have played a key role in the development of required filters for the ESA Athena X-ray Observatory and for the NASA MUSE space mission for solar coronal physics.  Moreover the acquired know-how on the properties of filters for X-ray instrumentation has been capitalized for the realization of a novel measurement system for material analysis (cf  AHEAD2020  WP15).

A picture showing the guest team lead by P. Thorma during the visit at BABE.
  • TNA accesses to BABE has also permitted:
    • The calibration of coating polarizers at key spectral lines to improved the design of a space polarimeter for solar physics (cf. N. Gutiérrez-Luna, G. Capobianco, A. M. Malvezzi, C. Honrado-Benítez, L. Rodríguez-de Marcos, J. I. Larruquert, A. Giglia, N. Mahne, S. Nannarone, and S. Fineschi, Multilayer beamsplitter polarizers for key UV-FUV spectral lines of solar polarimetry, Optics Express, 30(16), 29735 (2022)
    •  The characterization of the Surface Photoemission of the Radish Rover to the Moon (S. Kalo, F. Arneodo, L. Manenti, I. Sarnoff, H. Roberts, P. Oikonomou, L. Pasquali, N. Mahne, A. Giglia, S. Nannarone, E. Magnano, S. Nappini, S. Els “Yield Measurements of the Rashid Lunar Rover Materials at BABE”, to be submitted).
  • Approved TNA accesses to LARIX will permit to improve the design of detectors for the hard X-ray bandpass.

AHEAD2020  JRA has contributed to the realization of BEaTriX: a facility for X-ray pore optic test that is now part of the TNA offer.