ART-XC will survey the entire sky every 6 months during the first four years of its mission. Our team at MSFC has conducted a series of simulations to test the scientific performance of ART-XC during this survey mode using the SIXTE software developed at Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics.
The exposure maps shown at the right are generated using SIXTE based on the sample eROSITA all-sky survey attitude file and the ART-XC vignetting functions. They display only a 4 deg by 4 deg region of the sky centered at RA=270 deg and DEC=66 deg. Exposure maps for several different time periods of the all-sky survey are shown.
Based on these exposure times, we have also simulated ART-XC sources based on the ROSAT all-sky survey. Both images with and without particle and cosmic backgrounds are shown below. Since SRG will maintain the L2 orbit at which the X-ray particle background is less studied, we assumed a NuSTAR-like particle background. These simulations show the large numbers of sources ART-XC will be able to detect using its exquisite MSFC-built hard X-ray mirrors and IKI-built detectors.
