The precise reconstruction of Compton-scatter events is paramount for an imaging medium-energy gamma-ray telescope. The proposed AMEGO-X is enabled by a silicon tracker utilizing AstroPix chips - a pixelated silicon HVCMOS sensor novel for space use. To achieve science goals, each 500 × 500 μm2 pixel must be sensitive for energy deposits ranging from 25 - 700 keV with an energy resolution of 5 keV at 122 keV (< 10%). This is achieved through depletion of the 500 μm thick sensor, although complete depletion poses an engineering and design challenge. This talk will summarize the current status of depletion measurements highlighting direct measurement with TCT laser scanning and the agreement with simulation. Future plans for further testing will also be identified.
Many questions posed in the Astro2020 Decadal survey in both the New Messengers and New Physics and the Cosmic Ecosystems science themes require a gamma-ray mission with capabilities exceeding those of existing (e.g. Fermi, Swift) and planned (e.g. COSI) observatories. ComPair, the Compton Pair telescope, is a prototype of such a next-generation gamma-ray mission. It had its inaugural balloon flight from Ft. Sumner, New Mexico in August 2023. To continue the goals of the ComPair project to develop technologies that will enable a future gamma-ray mission, the next generation of ComPair (ComPair-2) will be upgraded to increase the sensitivity and low-energy transient capabilities of the instrument. These advancements are enabled by AstroPix, a silicon monolithic active pixel sensor, in the tracker and custom dual-gain silicon photomultipliers and front-end electronics in the calorimeter. This effort builds on design work for the All-sky Medium Energy Gamma-ray Observatory eXplorer (AMEGO-X) concept that was submitted the 2021 MIDEX Announcement of Opportunity. Here we describe the ComPair-2 prototype design and integration and testing plans to advance the readiness level of these novel technologies.
KEYWORDS: Space operations, Sensors, Equipment, Gamma radiation, Signal detection, Silicon photomultipliers, Data archive systems, Observatories, Data processing, Design
BurstCube is a 6U (10 x 20 x 30 cm) CubeSat designed to detect gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and enable multimessenger observations, scheduled to launch in early 2024. BurstCube science is informed by the coincident detection of GRB 170817A and gravitational wave (GW) 170817, which confirmed compact binary mergers as progenitors for GRBs. Future coincident detections will also provide important context to the GW measurements - namely constraining the neutron star equation of state and testing fundamental physics, while also probing the origin of GRB prompt emission. Full sky coverage in the gamma-ray regime is needed to increase the likelihood of such measurements. Once in orbit, BurstCube will expand sky coverage while rapidly providing public alerts and localization information to the community using the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) and General Coordinates Network (GCN). This work will describe the current status of the mission, as well as an outline of post-launch operations, performance, and science goals.
All-sky medium-energy gamma-ray observations are essential to deepen our understanding of physics in high energy astronomical phenomena, and to further develop multi-messenger astronomy. Future all-sky MeV gamma-ray telescopes must have a large area detector and keep high sensitivities even in the energies in which Compton scattering is dominant. AMEGO-X is one of the proposed MeV gamma-ray missions and its gamma-ray detector consists of silicon trackers and calorimeters. In order to efficiently detect MeV photons and to have precise Compton reconstruction, the silicon sensors must be fully depleted (500 μm) and have a moderate position resolution (∼ 500 μm) with a good energy resolution (< 10% at 60 keV). On top of that, the power consumption of the silicon detector must be low (< 1.5 mW/cm2) given the required silicon area in the gamma-ray detector is huge (∼ 24 m2). We have been developing AstroPix, a high-voltage CMOS active pixel sensor, to fulfill such specifications. In this contribution, we report basic characterization of the third version of AstroPix chip (AstroPix3), such as I-V measurement, imaging capability, energy spectrum, and indirect depletion depth measurements using gamma-ray sources.
HEX-P is an x-ray probe-class mission concept that will combine high angular resolution (⪅15 arcsec) with broad band spectral coverage (0.2 - 80 keV) to enable revolutionary new insights into the important astrophysical questions of the next decade identified by the 2020 Decadal Survey. Sensitivity is key to the instrument performance and estimating the background a crucial step in the development of the design and prediction of the instrument performance. The HEX-P orbit is at L1, and since L1 has hosted no prior missions with x-ray coverage that can be used to estimate the background level, the particle background has to be simulated. We present here the simulations done to evaluate the contribution to the background from charged particles, which show that the high energy background is dominated by hadronic activation in the detector mass and prompt leptons. To reduce the additional Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB), which is non-charged, the instruments are fitted with apertures and blocking plates of a graded-Z material to attenuate the CXB to a level an order of magnitude below the requirement.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.