Figure - available from: Solar Physics
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Image quality at maximum exposure and varying camera gain settings illuminated with photon flux of approximately 160 ph s⁻¹ px⁻¹. Gain settings are swept from 25 dB – 40 dB to determine optimal camera settings. Signal to background approximated by the ratio between the mean of target regions to the mean of off target regions is plotted (bottom). An peak is found between 30 – 35 dB. However, signal brightness is doubled at maximum gain settings of 40 dB so with proper background subtraction, good image quality can be achieved with the maximum gain setting.
Source publication
The Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) is a slit spectrograph designed to fly on a sounding-rocket and to observe the Sun in soft X-rays (SXRs) to determine the frequency of coronal heating events. The MaGIXS wavelength range (≈ 0.6 – 2.5 nm) has a significant number of diagnostic lines formed at coronal temperatures, but develo...
Citations
... Due to the lower-than-expected throughput of the optics, as well as the recognition of the value of slot spectrographs in providing both spatial and spectral information, MaGIXS was fitted with a 12′-wide slot instead of the originally intended narrow slit. MaGIXS includes a "slitjaw" context imager, described in Vigil et al. (2021). ...
The Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) sounding rocket experiment launched on 2021 July 30 from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. MaGIXS is a unique solar observing telescope developed to capture X-ray spectral images of coronal active regions in the 6–24 Å wavelength range. Its novel design takes advantage of recent technological advances related to fabricating and optimizing X-ray optical systems, as well as breakthroughs in inversion methodologies necessary to create spectrally pure maps from overlapping spectral images. MaGIXS is the first instrument of its kind to provide spatially resolved soft X-ray spectra across a wide field of view. The plasma diagnostics available in this spectral regime make this instrument a powerful tool for probing solar coronal heating. This paper presents details from the first MaGIXS flight, the captured observations, the data processing and inversion techniques, and the first science results.
... Due to the lower-than-expected throughput of the optics, as well as the recognition of the value of slot spectrographs in providing both spatial and spectral information, MaGIXS was fitted with a 12'-wide slot instead of the originally intended narrow slit. MaGIXS includes a "slit jaw" context imager, described in Vigil et al. (2021). ...
The Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) sounding rocket experiment launched on July 30, 2021 from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. MaGIXS is a unique solar observing telescope developed to capture X-ray spectral images, in the 6 - 24 Angstrom wavelength range, of coronal active regions. Its novel design takes advantage of recent technological advances related to fabricating and optimizing X-ray optical systems as well as breakthroughs in inversion methodologies necessary to create spectrally pure maps from overlapping spectral images. MaGIXS is the first instrument of its kind to provide spatially resolved soft X-ray spectra across a wide field of view. The plasma diagnostics available in this spectral regime make this instrument a powerful tool for probing solar coronal heating. This paper presents details from the first MaGIXS flight, the captured observations, the data processing and inversion techniques, and the first science results.
... As is evidenced in this article and discussed in detail by O'Dwyer et al. (2010), there is currently poor spectroscopic coverage of plasma at temperatures 2 MK. The upcoming NASA sounding rocket Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS: Kobayashi et al., 2017;Vigil et al., 2021) aims to fill this void by resolving soft X-ray spectra (Fe XVII -Fe XX) above a 4 MK active region. Future work utilising the data from MaGIXS, as well as the X-ray and EUV spectrometer data from ESA's Solar Orbiter, is planned to further examine whether it is possible to determine the number of strands and/or their heating frequencies using the techniques presented in this article. ...
Coronal loops form the basic building blocks of the magnetically closed solar corona yet much is still to be determined concerning their possible fine-scale structuring and the rate of heat deposition within them. Using an improved multi-stranded loop model to better approximate the numerically challenging transition region, this article examines synthetic NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory's (SDO) Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) emission simulated in response to a series of prescribed spatially and temporally random, impulsive and localised heating events across numerous sub-loop elements with a strong weighting towards the base of the structure: the nanoflare heating scenario. The total number of strands and nanoflare repetition times is varied systematically in such a way that the total energy content remains approximately constant across all the cases analysed. Repeated time-lag detection during an emission time series provides a good approximation for the nanoflare repetition time for low-frequency heating. Furthermore, using a combination of AIA 171/193 and 193/211 channel ratios in combination with spectroscopic determination of the standard deviation of the loop-apex temperature over several hours alongside simulations from the outlined multi-stranded loop model, it is demonstrated that both the imposed heating rate and number of strands can be realised.
The Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) is a sounding rocket instrument that flew on July 30, 2021 from the White Sands Missile Range, NM. The instrument was designed to address specific science questions that require differential emission measures of the solar soft X-ray spectrum from 6 – 25[Formula: see text]Å(0.5 – 2.1[Formula: see text]keV). MaGIXS comprises a Wolter-I telescope, a slit-jaw imaging system, an identical pair of grazing incidence paraboloid mirrors, a planar grating and a CCD camera. While implementing this design, some limitations were encountered in the production of the X-ray mirrors, which ended up as a catalyst for the development of a deterministic polishing approach and an improved meteorological technique that utilizes a computer-generated hologram (CGH). The opto-mechanical design approach addressed the need to have adjustable and highly repeatable interfaces to allow for the complex alignment between the optical sub-assemblies. The alignment techniques employed when mounting the mirrors and throughout instrument integration and end-to-end testing are discussed. Also presented are spatial resolution measurements of the end-to-end point-spread-function that were obtained during testing in the X-ray Cryogenic Facility (XRCF) at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Lastly, unresolved issues and off-nominal performance are discussed.
