Detector random time delay compensation method for X-ray pulsar observation

For recent few decades, the observation for X-ray emission of pulsar is very popular. Among the multiple experiments, to construct the signal profile of X-ray pulsar is a significant one. During the observation, the X-ray signal photons of pulsars need to be collected by sensors in space. At present, the applied silicon-based X-ray sensors include Silicon Drift Detector (SDD), Swept Charge Device (SCD) and so on. Owing to the X-ray photons reach different places on the sensor at a time, the photon arrival time these detectors record always includes random time delay. This kind of delay will decrease the accuracy of detected signal profile. Therefore, studying how to compensate this delay is very necessary. In this paper, the principle how sensor time delay affects the signal profile is presented. Furthermore, based on the deconvolution calculation, a time delay compensation method is proposed. According to simulation and the hardware-in-loop experiments, it can be proven that the method can eliminate the effects of profile time delay and profile distortion. The method can support astro observation in space and X-ray pulsar-based navigation.