Medium-Energy Gamma-Ray Astrophysics with the 3-DTI Gamma-Ray Telescope

Author

Hunter, Stanley D. ; Baker, Robert G. ; Barbier, Louis M. ; Bloser, Peter F. ; Cooper, LaVida ; Krizmanic, John F. ; Link, Jason T. ; McConnell, Mark L. ; De Nolfo, Georgia A. ; Ryan, James M. ; Singh, Satpal ; Son, Seunghee

Author_Institution

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

Volume

2

fYear

2006

fDate

Oct. 29 2006-Nov. 1 2006

Firstpage

778

Lastpage

782

Abstract

Gamma-ray observations in the medium energy range (0.50-50.0 MeV) are central to unfolding many outstanding questions in astrophysics. The challenges of medium-energy gamma-ray observations, however, are the low photon statistics and large backgrounds. We review these questions, address the telescope technology requirements, and describe our development of the 3-Dimensional Track Imaging (3-DTI) Compton telescope and its performance for a new medium-energy gamma-ray mission. The 3-DTI is a large-volume time projection chamber (TPC) with a 2-dimensional gas micro-well detector (MWD) readout.

Keywords

aerospace instrumentation; astronomical telescopes; gamma-ray astronomy; time projection chambers; 0.50 to 50.0 MeV; 2D gas microwell detector readout; 3-DTI gamma-ray telescope; 3D track imaging; gamma-ray astrophysics; gamma-ray observations; medium-energy gamma-ray mission; photon statistics; time projection chamber; Astrophysics; Electromagnetic scattering; Gamma ray detection; Gamma ray detectors; Instruments; Nuclear and plasma sciences; Optical design; Particle scattering; Statistics; Telescopes;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2006. IEEE

Conference_Location

San Diego, CA

ISSN

1095-7863

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0560-2

Electronic_ISBN

1095-7863

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2006.355967

Filename

4179121