Ray-traced effective area and angular resolution of NewAthena’s optics

NewAthena’s mirror assembly uses Silicon Pore Optics technology. It is important to assess and confirm the latest mirror design’s ability to meet the mission’s science goals. This study performs ray-tracing simulations of NewAthena’s updated SPO mirror assembly using the ray-tracing tool SPORT, and assesses its performance based on effective area and angular resolution.\\ \\ All variants are found to produce an effective area 1 keV beyond the scientific requirement. No conclusions are made on the absolute angular resolution of NewAthena, but it is established that the variations with secondary polynomial and equal polynomial mirror curvature perform best, depending on the energy regime. A phenomenon is also shown where shifting destructive interference causes periodic peaks and troughs in the PSF HEW of individual rings of the optics, though this effect is not seen in the PSF HEW of the entire optics.