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K. C. Gendreau (GSFC), P. Beiersdorfer (LLNL), K. R. Boyce (GSFC), G. V. Brown (LLNL), H. Chen (LLNL), M. Chen (LLNL), J. Gygax (GSFC), S. M. Kahn (Columbia), R. L. Kelley (GSFC), D. A. Liedahl (LLNL), F. S. Porter (GSFC), C. K. Stahle (GSFC), A. E. Szymkowiak (GSFC), K. Widmann (LLNL)
The electron beam ion trap (EBIT) at LLNL is a facility unique in its ability to produce precisely defined laboratory plasmas which simulate many high energy astrophysical situations. We have recently used a well calibrated ASTRO-E/XRS microcalorimeter system to observe the x-ray emission from these controlled plasmas. We are reading out 30 pixels of this XRS detector giving us an area of over 12 mm2. The XRS energy resolution across the array ranges from ~ 8 eV below 1 keV to ~ 11 eV around 6 keV. Its bandpass ranges from ~ 300 eV to over 10 keV. It is also capable of making phase resolved spectroscopy using its timing resolution of about ten microseconds. All these XRS characteristics are complementary to the other EBIT spectrometers such as the crystal and grating spectrometers which provide higher resolution at lower throughput. We have used this suite of instruments to make absolute flux measurements of iron K and L shell spectral features at fixed electron beam energies. We have also simulated isothermal plasmas ranging in temperature from 600 eV to 3 keV. The data we are collecting will support observations being made by ASCA, XMM, Chandra, and future high resolution X-ray spectroscopy missions.
Work by the UC-LLNL was performed under the auspices of DOE under contract W-7405-ENG-48 and supported by NASA Space Astrophysics Research and Analysis grants to LLNL, GSFC, and Columbia University.