GAMMA-RAY FOCUSING CONCENTRATORS FOR ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATIONS BY CRYSTAL DIFFRACTION IN LAUE GEOMETRY

The diffraction and optical properties of several crystal concentrator configurations which could be adopted in hard x-ray astrophysical obs ervations are discussed and compared in terms of effective area, focus ing characteristics, and overall dimensions. First, a concentrator con sisting of a set of circular rings covered with asymmetric mosaic crys tals in Laue geometry is considered; focusing is achieved by an approp riate choice of the geometrical parameters and the asymmetry angles. S pecific effective areas larger than 600 cm2 can be obtained in the ene rgy range 120-190 keV by using Si (422) Bragg reflections in a device with a diameter of 2.5 m and a focal length of 13.5 m. Afterwards, a s pherical-zone crystal concentrator is analyzed where asymmetric Laue g eometry leads to focusing. With a focal length of 8 m and Si (422) ref lections, the mean effective area in the energy range 100-300 keV is a bout 6500 times larger than the focal spot while the separation power of the concentrator is of the order of 10 arcsec. Finally, a concentra tor consisting of several coaxial focusing paraboloids is analyzed. Th e surfaces of the paraboloids are covered by mosaic crystal tiles with lattice planes disposed normally to the meridians. By using Ge crysta ls with a mosaic width of almost-equal-to 350 murad and assuming a foc al length f = 10 m with a total aperture 2alpha = 16 deg, it is possib le to obtain effective areas larger than 1000 cm2 for energies smaller than about 150 keV. On the other hand, the ratio between the mean eff ective area and the size of the focal spot in the energy range 200-500 keV is higher than 10 000.