Facilities

Based on AHEAD experience we plan to give access to a subsets of the best European ground test and calibration facilities selected to cover the most relevant needs of hardware developments and tests with special attention to high-energy astrophysics from space, but that can be used in a wider context. Those facilities are currently offered in the context of international and national collaborations or (rarely) via access costs at the expense of the external teams. With the implementation of the AHEAD2020 TNA, external team access costs will be covered with the support of the European Commission, strengthening scientific and technological exchanges. In particular, we foresee that such a facility network will enable access to teams in European and Associated Countries with no national access to ground facilities. Based on AHEAD experience we have built a TNA offer that covers a range of possible applications and needs and includes:  one big thermal vacuum chamber (FOCAL2 at CSL),  two shakers (at CSL and COSINE), a facility for testing thin filters (BBOTOC at CSL), a suite of synchrotron-based installations (BABE CNR-IOM) for photonic characterization and microscopic diagnostics of optical elements, optical devices and related constituent materials in a wide energy range, gamma/hard X-ray and soft X-ray general purpose beam-lines (at LARIX and XACT, respectively) and a soft X-ray beam line specialized for Silicon Pore (SP) optic testing (BeaTRiX).

XACT installation at INAF-OAPA Palermo

FOCAL2 and Shaker 200 kN installations at CSL Liège Belgium

LARIX-A and LARIX-T installation at UNIFE Ferrara

Babe at IOM-CNR Trieste, Italy

COSINE Warmond, The Netherlands

BEaTriX, INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera