Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Boggs, S
• Jean, P
• Lin, R
• Smith, D
• von Ballmoos, P
• Madden, N
• Luke, P
• Amman, M
• Burks, M
• Hull, E

Titel

The Nuclear Compton Telescope - A balloon-borne soft gamma-ray spectrometer, polarimeter, and imager

Ist Teil von

• AIP Conference Proceedings, 2001, p.877-881

Erscheinungsjahr

2001

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Our collaboration has begun the design and development of a prototype high resolution Compton telescope utilizing 3D imaging germanium detectors. The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT) is a balloon-borne soft gamma-ray (0.2-15 MeV) telescope designed to study astrophysical sources of nuclear line emission and polarization. NCT is a prototype design for the Advanced Compton Telescope, to study gamma-ray radiation with very high spectral resolution, moderate angular resolution, and high sensitivity. The instrument has a novel, ultra-compact design optimized for studying nuclear line emission in the critical 0.5-2 MeV range, and polarization in the 0.20.5 MeV range. We have proposed to develop and fly NCT on a conventional U.S. balloon flight in the summer 2004. This first flight will perform gamma-ray polarization measurements the Crab nebula, Crab pulsar, and Cyg X-1, and 26A1 emission from the Cygnus region. This flight will critically test the novel instrument technologies and analysis techniques we have developed for high resolution Compton telescopes, and qualify the payload to begin a series of approximately 10-day long duration balloon flights from Alice Springs, Australia starting in the spring of 2005. (Author)