The Prototype Nuclear Compton Telescope Radiation Background and Its Impact on Instrument Sensitivity

Details The Prototype Nuclear Compton Telescope Radiation Background and Its Impact on Instrument Sensitivity The Prototype Nuclear Compton Telescope Radiation Background and Its Impact on Instrument Sensitivity

Mar 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008head...10.2811b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #10, #28.11

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT) is a balloon-borne soft gamma-ray (0.2 MeV to 10 MeV) germanium Compton telescope designed to study astrophysical sources of nuclear line emission and polarization. A prototype instrument was successfully launched from Ft. Sumner, NM on June 1, 2005. The NCT prototype consists of two 3D position-sensitive high purity germanium strip detectors fabricated with amorphous germanium contacts. The compact design and new technologies allow NCT to achieve high efficiencies with excellent spectral resolution and background reduction. Here we present a detailed study of approximately 8 hours of background measurements made from 580 g/cm2 (4.6 km) to an average float altitude of 3.0 g/cm2 (40 km), with particular emphasis on float observations. A total of 6 hr 9 min of observation time was acquired at float, while the duration of the ascent portion of the flight included in this study was 1 hr 50 min. The expected contributions to the background are discussed, especially in light of detailed Monte Carlo simulations modeling the entire flight and incorporating complete depth dependent environmental inputs, including 4 cosmic components (protons, photons, electrons, and positrons) and 8 atmospheric components (photons, atmospheric 511 keV emission, neutrons, protons, electrons, positrons, and muons). All components contribute a prompt signal. The protons and neutrons also contribute an activation-induced, or delayed, signal due to deexcitation of atomic nuclei and/or nuclear decay. Here we present results from our investigations, including the component makeup of the total background as a function of atmospheric depth, the contribution of delayed emission from passive material to the observed background, and the impact of these components on instrument sensitivity. The results presented here are relevant to future flights (see J.-L. Chiu, this conference) scheduled for launch from Ft. Sumner, NM in September 2008 (10 detectors) and Australia in December 2009 (12 detectors).

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