Optimizing telescope design for X-ray astronomy missions

该项目旨在加速X射线望远镜部件的结构优化。莱斯特大学在X射线天文学方面拥有丰富的专业知识，并与欧洲航天局（ESA）密切合作。例如，莱斯特大学为2018年10月发射的欧空局使命BepiColombo开发了复杂的玻璃光学器件。这些玻璃光学器件将X射线聚焦在望远镜的探测器上，并安装在必须精确校准到正确位置的支撑结构上，同时重量轻且足够坚固，以承受望远镜发射期间由于振动而产生的机械应力。这是一项具有挑战性的任务，人们付出了巨大的努力才得以克服。这种支撑结构在X射线望远镜中无处不在，但它们的最佳设计取决于望远镜的具体情况。为了加快设计过程，我们将使用2D表面（也称为薄壳模型）对这些3D结构进行建模，利用它们的厚度与体积相比非常小的事实。使用高等数学，我们将使用这种降维来实现更快的数值模拟。理论工作将与高性能计算软件的开发相辅相成。该软件将用于优化莱斯特大学开发的X射线望远镜的光学支撑结构的设计。

This project aims at accelerating the structural optimization of X-ray telescope components. The University of Leicester has a strong expertise in X-ray astronomy and collaborates closely with the European Space Agency (ESA). For example, the University of Leicester has developed sophisticated glass optics for the ESA mission BepiColombo, which was launched in October 2018. These glass optics focus X-rays on the telescope's detector, and are mounted on a support structure that must be precisely calibrated to the correct position, while being both lightweight and sufficiently robust to tolerate mechanical stresses due to vibrations during the telescope launch. This was a challenging task that has been overcome with intense efforts.Support structures of this kind are ubiquitous in X-ray telescopes, but their optimal design depends on the telescope specifics. To accelerate the design process, we will model these 3D-structures using 2D-surfaces, also called thin-shell models, by exploiting the fact that their thickness is very small compared to their volume. Using advanced mathematics, we will use this dimension reduction to achieve faster numerical simulations. Theoretical efforts will be complemented with the development of a high-performance computing software. This software will be used to optimize the design of optics support structures of the X-ray telescopes developed at the University of Leicester.