The enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry mission—eXTP

Shuang-Nan Zhang , Andrea Santangelo , Marco Feroci , Yupeng Xu , Fangjun Lu , Hua Feng , Shu Zhang , Søren Brandt , Margarita Hernanz , Luca Baldini , Riccardo Campana , Alessandra de Rosa , Yongwei Dong , Yuri Evangelista , Norbert Meidinger , Aline Meuris (1) , Kirpal Nandra , Teng Pan , Giovanni Pareschi , Qiushi Huang , Stephane Schanne (1) , Giorgia Sironi , Daniele Spiga , Gianpiero Tagliaferri , Christoph Tenzer , Andrea Vacchi , Silvia Zane , Zhanshan Wang , Berend Winter , Xin Wu , Jean J.M. In 'T Zand , Giovanni Ambrosi , Filippo Ambrosino , Marco Barbera , Stefano Basso , Ronaldo Bellazzini , Pierluigi Bellutti , Bruna Bertucci , Giuseppe Bertuccio , Xuelei Cao , Franck Cadoux , Francesco Ceraudo , Yupeng Chen , Jerome Chevenez , Marta Civitani , Wei Cui , Weiwei Cui , Ettore del Monte , Sergio Di Cosimo , Sebastian Diebold , Victor Doroshenko , Yuanyuan Du , Lorenzo Ducci , Qingmei Fan , Yannick Favre , José Luis Gálvez , Min Gao , Mingyu Ge , Olivier Gevin (1) , Quanying Gu , Yudong Gu , Dawei Han , Bin Hong , Wei Hu , Shumei Jia , Weichun Jiang , Thomas Kennedy , Ingo Kreykenbohm , Irfan Kuvvetli , Luca Latronico , Gang Li , Maoshun Li , Xian Li , Wei Li , Olivier Limousin (1) , Hongwei Liu , Xiaojing Liu , Bo Lu , Tao Luo , Piero Malcovati , Adrian Martindale , Malgorzata Michalska , Bin Meng , Alfredo Morbidini , Fabio Muleri , Stephane Paltani , Emanuele Perinati , Claudio Piemonte , Jinlu Qu , Alexandre Rachevski , Irina Rashevskaya , Thomas Schanz , Zhengxiang Shen , Lizhi Sheng , Jiangbo Song , Carmelo Sgro , Liang Sun , Ying Tan , Phil Uttley , Dianlong Wang , Guofeng Wang , Juan Wang , Langping Wang , Anna L. Watts , Xiangyang Wen , Jörn Wilms , Shaolin Xiong , Jiawei Yang , Yanji Yang , Nian Yu , Wenda Zhang , Gianluigi Zampa , Andrzej A. Zdziarski , Aimei Zhang , Chengmo Zhang , Fan Zhang , Long Zhang , Yi Zhang , Xiaoli Zhang , Ziliang Zhang , Baosheng Zhao , Yupeng Zhou , Nicola Zorzi , J. Frans Zwart

1 IRFU - Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers

In this paper we present the enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry mission—eXTP. eXTP is a space science mission designed to study fundamental physics under extreme conditions of density, gravity and magnetism. The mission aims at determining the equation of state of matter at supra-nuclear density, measuring effects of QED, and understanding the dynamics of matter in strong-field gravity. In addition to investigating fundamental physics, eXTP will be a very powerful observatory for astrophysics that will provide observations of unprecedented quality on a variety of galactic and extragalactic objects. In particular, its wide field monitoring capabilities will be highly instrumental to detect the electro-magnetic counterparts of gravitational wave sources. The paper provides a detailed description of: (1) the technological and technical aspects, and the expected performance of the instruments of the scientific payload, (2) the elements and functions of the mission, from the spacecraft to the ground segment.

Mots clés: X-ray instrumentation; X-ray polarimetry; X-ray timing; space mission: eXTP

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Shuang-Nan Zhang, Andrea Santangelo, Marco Feroci, Yupeng Xu, Fangjun Lu, et al.. The enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry mission—eXTP. Sci.China Phys.Mech.Astron., 2019, 62 (2), pp.29502. ⟨10.1007/s11433-018-9309-2⟩. ⟨hal-01990289⟩