Abstract
Progress in high-energy gamma-ray science has been dramatic since the launch of INTEGRAL, AGILE and FERMI. These instruments, however, are not optimized for observations in the medium-energy (~0.3< Eγ < ~200 MeV) regime where many astrophysical objects exhibit unique, transitory behavior, such as spectral breaks, bursts, and flares. We outline some of the major science goals of a medium-energy mission. These science goals are best achieved with a combination of two telescopes, a Compton telescope and a pair telescope, optimized to provide significant improvements in angular resolution and sensitivity. In this paper we describe the design of the Advanced Energetic Pair Telescope (AdEPT) based on the Three-Dimensional Track Imager (3-DTI) detector. This technology achieves excellent, mediumenergy sensitivity, angular resolution near the kinematic limit, and gamma-ray polarization sensitivity, by high resolution 3-D electron tracking. We describe the performance of a 30×30×30 cm3 prototype of the AdEPT instrument.
Department
Space Science Center, Physics
Publication Date
7-29-2010
Journal Title
SPIE Proceedings
Publisher
SPIE
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1117/12.857298
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Recommended Citation
Stanley D. Hunter ; Peter F. Bloser ; Michael P. Dion ; Mark L. McConnell ; Georgia A. de Nolfo ; Seunghee Son ; James M. Ryan and Floyd W. Stecker "Development of the Advance Energetic Pair Telescope (AdEPT) for medium-energy gamma-ray astronomy", Proc. SPIE 7732, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2010: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 773221 (July 29, 2010); doi:10.1117/12.857298; http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.857298
Rights
© (2010) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering.
