BEaTriX, the new facility to measure the modular X-ray optics of the ATHENA telescope with an expanded and parallel X-ray beam

BEaTriX (Beam Expander Testing X-ray facility) is the new facility available at the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico Brera (Merate, Italy) for the calibration of X-ray optics. Specifically designed to measure the point spread function (PSF) and the effective area (EA) of the mirror modules (MM) of the ATHENA X-ray telescope at their production rate, BEaTriX gives the unique possibility to test the optics with a source that approximate an astronomical source, i.e. with a large, parallel X-ray beam (170 × 60 mm2) that fully covers the entrance pupil of the MM. For a fast and precise testing, BEaTriX is a compact facility (9 × 18 m2) with fast vacuum pump-down (to 10-6 mbar), and an optical setup able to create the X-ray beam with a residual divergence of about 2-3 arcsec, HEW, and with a flux of 60 photons/s/cm2. The first beam line at the energy of 4.51 keV is now operative, and a second beam line, working at the energy of 1.49 keV, will be implemented in the coming future. The unique characteristics of the BEaTr