TY - GEN
T1 - Balloon-borne sub-MeV gamma-ray imager using electron tracking gaseous TPC and scintillation camera
AU - Kubo, H.
AU - Hattori, K.
AU - Kabuki, S.
AU - Kurosawa, S.
AU - Miuchi, K.
AU - Nagayoshi, T.
AU - Nishimura, H.
AU - Okada, Y.
AU - Orito, R.
AU - Sekiya, H.
AU - Takada, A.
AU - Tanimori, T.
AU - Ueno, K.
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - A balloon-borne sub-MeV gamma-ray imaging detector for astrophysics has been developed. It measures a three dimensional track of a Compton-recoil electron and determines the incident direction of each photon in a reduced arc projected on the sky. Our developed detector consists of two parts: One is a gaseous time projection chamber (μ-TPC) with a size of 10×10×14 cm3 with a micro pixel chamber (μ-PIC) readout, which measures both the three dimensional track and the energy of the Compton recoil electron. The other is a position-sensitive scintillation camera enclosing the μ-TPC, which consists of arrays of pixellated GSO(Ce) scintillators coupled to multianodes PMTs and measures both the direction and the energy of the scattered gamma ray. By the full reconstruction of incident gamma rays from these measurements, we have successfully obtained gamma-ray images in the 0.1-0.9 MeV range. The angular resolutions (FWHM) were 8.5° and 120° for single photon with 662 keV for an angular resolution measure and a scatter plane deviation, respectively. The detector had no collimator, and the field of view was 1 sr. In order to measure both the cosmic and the atmospheric gamma-ray background in the sub-MeV region, a balloon equipped with this detector was launched from JAXA/ISAS Sanriku Balloon Center in Japan on September 1, 2006, and flew for 7 hours with the highest altitude of 35 km. Based on the detector, a larger detector with the μ-TPC with a size of 30×30×30 cm 3 is being developed in order to observe celestial objects in the sub-MeV region.
AB - A balloon-borne sub-MeV gamma-ray imaging detector for astrophysics has been developed. It measures a three dimensional track of a Compton-recoil electron and determines the incident direction of each photon in a reduced arc projected on the sky. Our developed detector consists of two parts: One is a gaseous time projection chamber (μ-TPC) with a size of 10×10×14 cm3 with a micro pixel chamber (μ-PIC) readout, which measures both the three dimensional track and the energy of the Compton recoil electron. The other is a position-sensitive scintillation camera enclosing the μ-TPC, which consists of arrays of pixellated GSO(Ce) scintillators coupled to multianodes PMTs and measures both the direction and the energy of the scattered gamma ray. By the full reconstruction of incident gamma rays from these measurements, we have successfully obtained gamma-ray images in the 0.1-0.9 MeV range. The angular resolutions (FWHM) were 8.5° and 120° for single photon with 662 keV for an angular resolution measure and a scatter plane deviation, respectively. The detector had no collimator, and the field of view was 1 sr. In order to measure both the cosmic and the atmospheric gamma-ray background in the sub-MeV region, a balloon equipped with this detector was launched from JAXA/ISAS Sanriku Balloon Center in Japan on September 1, 2006, and flew for 7 hours with the highest altitude of 35 km. Based on the detector, a larger detector with the μ-TPC with a size of 30×30×30 cm 3 is being developed in order to observe celestial objects in the sub-MeV region.
KW - Gamma-ray imaging
KW - Gaseous detector
KW - Scintillator
KW - Time projection chamber
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=38649139925&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=38649139925&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/NSSMIC.2006.356185
DO - 10.1109/NSSMIC.2006.356185
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:38649139925
SN - 1424405610
SN - 9781424405619
T3 - IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record
SP - 406
EP - 410
BT - 2006 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium - Conference Record
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2006 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference and 15th International Workshop on Room-Temperature Semiconductor X- and Gamma-Ray Detectors, Special Focus Workshops, NSS/MIC/RTSD
Y2 - 29 October 2006 through 4 November 2006
ER -