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The Low Energy X-ray telescope (LE) onboard the Insight-HXMT astronomy satellite

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Abstract

The Low Energy X-ray telescope (LE) is one of the three main instruments of the Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT). It is equipped with Swept Charge Device (SCD) sensor arrays with a total geometrical area of 384 cm and an energy band from 0.7 to 13 keV. In order to evaluate the particle induced X-ray background and the cosmic X-ray background simultaneously, LE adopts collimators to define four types of Field Of Views (FOVs), i.e., 1.6°×6°, 4°×6°, 50°-60°×2°-6° and the blocked ones which block the X-ray by an aluminum cover. LE is constituted of three detector boxes (LEDs) and an electric control box (LEB) and achieves a good energy resolution of 140 eV@5.9 keV, an excellent time resolution of 0.98 ms, as well as an extremely low pileup (<1%@18000 cts/s). Detailed performance tests and calibration on the ground have been performed, including energy-channel relation, energy response, detection efficiency and time response.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yong Chen, WeiWei Cui, Wei Li, Juan Wang, YuPeng Xu, FangJun Lu, YuSa Wang, TianXiang Chen, DaWei Han, Wei Hu, Yi Zhang, Jia Huo, YanJi Yang, MaoShun Li, Bo Lu, ZiLiang Zhang, TiPei Li, ShuangNan Zhang, ShaoLin Xiong, Shu Zhang, RongFeng Xue, XiaoFan Zhao, Yue Zhu, YuXuan Zhu, HongWei Liu, YiJung Yang & Fan Zhang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    TiPei Li, ShuangNan Zhang & XiaoFan Zhao

  3. Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    TiPei Li

  4. Department of Education, Lu Liang University, Luliang, 033000, China

    RongFeng Xue

  5. Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing, 100094, China

    Yue Zhu

  6. College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun, 130023, China

    YuXuan Zhu

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  1. Yong Chen
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  2. WeiWei Cui
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  3. Wei Li
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  4. Juan Wang
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  23. Yue Zhu
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  24. YuXuan Zhu
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  27. Fan Zhang
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Correspondence to Yong Chen.

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This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program on Space Science, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA040102).

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Chen, Y., Cui, W., Li, W. et al. The Low Energy X-ray telescope (LE) onboard the Insight-HXMT astronomy satellite. Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 63, 249505 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-019-1469-5

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