The spring 2009 balloon flight of the Nuclear Compton Telescope

Author

Bandstra, Mark S. ; Bellm, Eric C. ; Chiu, Jeng-Lun ; Liang, Jau-Shian ; Liu, Zong-Kai ; Perez-Becker, Daniel ; Zoglauer, Andreas ; Boggs, Steven E. ; Chang, Hsiang-Kuang ; Chang, Yuan-Hann ; Huang, Ming-Huey A. ; Amman, Mark ; Chiang, Shiuan Juang ; Hung

Author_Institution

Space Sci. Lab., Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

fYear

2009

fDate

Oct. 24 2009-Nov. 1 2009

Firstpage

2131

Lastpage

2139

Abstract

The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT) is a balloon-borne soft gamma-ray (0.2-10 MeV) telescope designed to study astrophysical sources of nuclear line emission and polarization. NCT consists of twelve high-purity germanium cross-strip detectors (GeDs) that measure both the position and energy of gamma-ray interactions. A 10-GeD version was flown on May 17-18 2009 from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, NM, with a total flight duration of 38.5 hours. Here we summarize the instrument, the calibrations, the flight, and our preliminary science results.

Keywords

calibration; cosmic ray apparatus; gamma-ray apparatus; gamma-ray polarisation; germanium radiation detectors; astrophysical sources; balloon-borne soft gamma-ray telescope; calibrations; gamma-ray imaging; gamma-ray interactions; gamma-ray polarization; high-purity germanium cross-strip detectors; nuclear Compton telescope; nuclear line emission; nuclear polarization; spring 2009; total flight duration; Energy measurement; Extraterrestrial measurements; Gamma ray detection; Gamma ray detectors; Germanium; Optical design; Polarization; Position measurement; Springs; Telescopes; Compton imaging; Gamma-ray astronomy detectors; gamma-ray imaging; germanium detectors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record (NSS/MIC), 2009 IEEE

Conference_Location

Orlando, FL

ISSN

1095-7863

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-3961-4

Electronic_ISBN

1095-7863

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2009.5402108

Filename

5402108