The Gamma Ray Imaging Detector of the AGILE satellite: A novel application of silicon trackers for detection of astrophysics high-energy photons

AGILE is a project of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) Scientific Program dedicated to Gamma ray astrophysics. It is designed to be a very light and compact instrument, capable of photon detections and imaging in both the 30 MeV–50 GeV and 18–60 keV energy ranges, with a large field of view (FOV is ∼3 and ∼1 sr, respectively). re of the instrument (launched on April 23, 2007 from the Indian Space Research Organizationʹs launch facility) is represented by the Gamma Ray Imaging Detector (GRID), which is a silicon tracker developed by the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), with a spatial resolution of ∼40 μ m. The GRID performances have been studied by means of a GEANT Montecarlo, and tested with a dedicated calibration campaign using the tagged gamma beam available at Beam Test Facility (BTF) of INFN Frascati Laboratory.