The Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating: Design, Fabrication, Ground Calibration and Five Years in Flight

Abstract

Details of the design, fabrication, ground and flight calibration of the High Energy Transmission Grating, HETG, on the Chandra X-ray Observatory are presented after five years of flight experience. Specifics include the theory of phased transmission gratings as applied to the HETG, the Rowland design of the spectrometer, details of the grating fabrication techniques, and the results of ground testing and calibration of the HETG. For nearly six years the HETG has operated essentially as designed, although it has presented some subtle flight calibration effects.

34 pages (including 30 figures), accepted for publication in PASP

References in corpus (9)

• An Overview of the Performance and Scientific Results from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO)
• Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO):Overview
• First Light Measurements of Capella with the Low Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer aboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory
• High Resolution X-Ray Spectra of Capella: Initial Results from the Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer
• Mitigating Charge Transfer Inefficiency in the Chandra X-ray Observatory's ACIS Instrument
• Composition of the Chandra ACIS contaminant
• An Overview of the Performance of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory
• The Formal Underpinnings of the Response Functions used in X-Ray Spectral Analysis
• In-Flight Calibration of the Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer

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