A new satellite telescope, designed to swiftly track down the universe’s most powerful explosions, featuring groundbreaking technology developed at the University of Leicester.

The Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) mission is gearing up to be the second project this year that harnesses Leicester’s expertise in X-ray optics, following the launch of the Einstein Probe in January. Scheduled for launch on June 22, 2024, from the Xichang launch base, SVOM is a joint Franco-Chinese mission focused on studying the most distant stellar explosions, known as gamma-ray bursts.

Figure 1. The optics used for MXT. (Credit: CNES/DE PRADA Thierry, 2021)

The mission is a collaborative effort between the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with key contributions from France's Institute of Research into the Fundamental Laws of the Universe (Irfu) and the Research Institute of Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP), alongside China's National Astronomical Observatory (NAO) and Beijing High Energy Institute (IHEP). Figure 1 shows the MXT instrument for SVOM, which uses optics built at the University of Leicester [1].

Leicester's role in the SVOM mission involves constructing and testing the optics for its X-ray telescope, known as the microchannel X-ray telescope (MXT). This mission is the latest in a series where Leicester has applied its extensive experience in building optics, previously contributing to ESA/JAXA’s BepiColombo mission. The Leicester team will also be part of SVOM’s science team, enhancing their research into high-energy astrophysics across the cosmos.

Professor Paul O’Brien from the University of Leicester’s School of Physics and Astronomy, who led the team, said: “For the areas we particularly want to study, we want to take advantage of SVOM flying alongside the NASA/UK/Italy Neil Gehrels Swift observatory and the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope, to study distant gamma ray bursts, the early universe and gravitational waves. We want a larger field of view X-ray telescope because we’re interested in a brand-new area of science: looking for the sources of gravitational waves. Gravitational wave detectors don’t give us a very good location accuracy on the sky and we need to search that area quickly, so the X-ray telescope built for SVOM is designed to do that.”

The MXT utilizes advanced micropore optics, similar to those used on BepiColombo, enabling a wider field-of-view and lighter design, which allows SVOM to carry more equipment than previous missions like Swift.

Dr. Charly Feldman, also from the School of Physics and Astronomy, explained: “The optics on the MXT instrument are very special. They are called a lobster-eye optic, which is where we have smaller individual X-ray optics tessellated onto a curved frame and then they work together to create a larger field of view. They are based on the eyes of crustaceans such as lobsters and crayfish which, because they live in very deep dark waters, have to be able to collect as many photons as possible. They do that by having lots of individual pores across their eye in a spherical formation, focused on a spherical retina. We replicate this by creating 40-micron tubes, very similar to optical fibres, which are stacked and then slumped so that all the pores are pointing to a single focus.”

Another key member of the Leicester team, Dr. Rob Eyles-Ferris, will serve as a ‘Burst Advocate’ on the SVOM mission, a role similar to his previous work on the Swift mission.

Dr. Eyles-Ferris highlighted the significance of SVOM’s capabilities: “When SVOM detects a gamma-ray burst, the Burst Advocate’s role is to co-ordinate the follow-up, keep track of all the data that SVOM takes, possibly from ground-based telescopes as well. SVOM’s going to see all kinds of new events and is ideal for detecting jetting TDEs - tidal disruption events, where the matter falling on to a black hole has arrived so quickly that the black hole can’t accrete it and it shoots material out at speeds close to the speed of light. There’s only been four of them observed so far. The ECLAIRS instrument on SVOM is ideal for detecting them, it’s the right kind of energy regime, and the MXT is ideal for keeping an eye on them. Their later behaviour is complicated and tells you a lot about both a black hole and the star it originally came from and how the event actually occurred. TDEs, and particularly jetted ones, are probes of extreme physics that you can’t really investigate any other way.” [1]

SVOM is poised to open a new chapter in our understanding of the universe, shedding light on some of the most extreme and mysterious phenomena ever observed.

Source: University of Leicester

References:

• https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1048615

Cite this article:

Hana M (2024), Cutting-Edge Telescope to Hunt Cosmic Explosions with Leicester-Built Technology, AnaTechmaz, pp. 123