NuSTAR—Exploring the Hard X-ray Universe
Fiona Harrison (CalTech) and the NuSTAR Team
ABSTRACT:
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), a proposed SMEX mission, will be the first focusing hard X-ray telescope in earth orbit, with imaging and spectroscopic
capabilities in the 6-80 keV band. The telescope will employ an array of grazing-incidence segmented mirrors with depth-graded multilayer coatings to achieve 40 arcsec HPD
resolution. This will enable the first true images of extended hard X-ray sources. High resolution also translates to high sensitivity for deep hard X-ray surveys. The telescope
mirrors and detectors will be deployed on opposite ends of an extendable mast. The NuSTAR mission has three primary science goals. NuSTAR will make a census of Galactic
and extragalactic black holes, with deep imaging surveys of the Galactic Center region and of the NDWFS and GOODS fields (studying highly absorbed sources near the peak of
the extragalactic hard X-ray background). NuSTAR will image Ti-44 line emission in young supernova remnants to study the birth of the elements and supernova dynamics.
Finally, NuSTAR will make spectral and time-variability studies of active galactic nuclei, in coordination with GLAST and other gamma-ray telescopes as well as ground-based
radio and optical telescopes. In addition to these core programs, NuSTAR will be a new and powerful tool for the study of galactic compact objects, gamma-ray bursts, nearby
supernovae, galaxy clusters, and other sources, opening the hard X-ray band to observations with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity.