Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jun 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003phdt........15p&link_type=abstract
Thesis (PhD). THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA IN HUNTSVILLE, Source DAI-B 63/12, p. 5891, Jun 2003, 271 pages.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
High-energy gamma-ray astronomy (greater than 20 MeV) involves the study of the most energetic objects in the universe. The Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET) considerably advanced our knowledge of blazars, gamma-ray bursts (GR13s), pulsars and isotropic background radiation. Even though EGRET produced unprecedented discoveries in high-energy gamma-ray astronomy, it also raised several unanswered questions regarding these astrophysical objects. An advanced new generation of high-energy space-based gamma-ray telescopes is needed for unraveling the unanswered questions raised by EGRET. In this dissertation, the observational capabilities of possible instrument scenarios in high-energy gamma-ray astrophysics are explored. The goals are to learn how different combinations of detector response parameters affect observational capabilities for high-energy “extragalactic” astrophysics, to determine what detector response parameters are required to achieve optimum observations for various scientific objectives, to identify performance thresholds and optimum sets of detector response parameters that are not obvious, and to learn what detector response parameters are best for specific science missions, sufficient to fulfill all of the mission scientific objectives within a limited budget. This study shows that optimum performance results for various combinations of scientific objectives require different sets of response parameters. In addition, the related response parameter spaces also have different increments of performance results toward the optimum. This study also shows that, for most scientific objectives in high-energy “extragalactic” astrophysics, improving point spread function to the extremum, while not changing other response parameters, improves performance significantly especially for the scientific objectives that have high background photons. The exception is the population study where EA and FOV are as important as PSF. Generally, increasing effective area does increase performance results for most scientific objectives, but not as strongly as improving the point spread function does. Improving energy resolution does not significantly increase observation performance for most scientific objectives except for spectral break determination. Finally, this study provides scientists and instrument developers with the information they need to make important trade studies in design parameters as a function of the science objectives, which are particularly important for space-based detectors where the design is limited by physical parameters, such as dimension and weight.
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