Author :
Yamaoka, K. ; Ohno, M. ; Terada, Y. ; Hong, S. ; Kotoku, J. ; Okada, Y. ; Tsutsui, A. ; Endo, Y. ; Abe, K. ; Fukazawa, Y. ; Hirakuri, S. ; Hiruta, T. ; Itoh, K. ; Itoh, T. ; Kamae, T. ; Kawaharada, M. ; Kawano, N. ; Kawashima, K. ; Kishishita, T. ; Kitagu
Abstract :
The hard X-ray detector (HXD-II) is one of the three scientific instruments onboard Japanese X-ray astronomy satellite Astro-E2 scheduled to be launched in 2005. This mission is very unique in a point of having a lower background than any other past missions in the 10-600 keV range. In the HXD-II, the large and thick BGO crystals are used as active shields for particle and gamma-ray background to the main detector. They have a wide field of view of ~2pi and a large effective area of 400 cm2 even at 1 MeV. Hence, the BGO shields have been developed as a wide-band all-sky monitor (WAM) with a broadband coverage of 50-5000 keV. In this paper, overall design and performance of the HXD-II/WAM based on the results of preflight calibration tests carried out in June 2004 are described. By irradiating various radio isotopes with the WAM flight model, we verified that it had comparable capabilities with other gamma-ray burst detectors
Keywords :
X-ray detection; artificial satellites; gamma-ray astronomy; gamma-ray bursts; gamma-ray detection; solid scintillation detectors; BGO crystals; HXD-II Wide-Band All-Sky Monitor Onboard Astro-E2; WAM flight model; X-ray astronomy; astronomical satellites; gamma-ray background; gamma-ray burst detectors; hard X-ray detector; particle background; preflight calibration tests; radio isotopes; scintillation detectors; shields; Astronomy; Calibration; Crystals; Gamma ray detection; Gamma ray detectors; Instruments; Monitoring; Satellite broadcasting; Wideband; X-ray detectors; Astronomical satellites; X-ray astronomy; hard X-ray detectors; scintillation detectors;
