The Gamma Cube: a novel concept of gamma-ray telescope

F. Lebrun; R. Terrier; P. Laurent; D. Prêle; E. Bréelle; J.-P. Baronick; C. Buy; A. Noury; C. Olivetto; R. Chipaux

doi:10.1117/12.2055951

24 July 2014 The Gamma Cube: a novel concept of gamma-ray telescope

F. Lebrun, R. Terrier, P. Laurent, D. Prêle, E. Bréelle, J.-P. Baronick, C. Buy, A. Noury, C. Olivetto, R. Chipaux

Proceedings Volume 9144, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 91440B (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2055951
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2014, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

Abstract

There is a large gap in between the Integral and Fermi spectral domains that is unobserved since the end of the CGRO mission and its Comptel experiment. There were many attempts to fill this gap but no proposal succeeded yet to convince a space agency to plan a mission. There are many reasons contributing to this situation but the most important one is that neither mirrors nor present particle tracking devices are effective at these energies. We propose here a novel design allowing particle tracking for a gamma-ray telescope in the 5–100 MeV band. The idea of this experiment is to image the ionizing tracks of charged particles using the light produced in a scintillator. The experiment operates as a pair creation telescope at high energy and as a Compton telescope with electron tracking at low energy. The telescope features a large scintillator transparent to the produced scintillation light, an ad-hoc optical system and a high resolution and highly sensitive imager. We review the requirements for each of these sub-systems and propose an experiment design taking into account the space constraints. We emphasize the numerous conceptual advantages of such a system as well as the identified difficulties.

Citation Download Citation

F. Lebrun, R. Terrier, P. Laurent, D. Prêle, E. Bréelle, J.-P. Baronick, C. Buy, A. Noury, C. Olivetto, and R. Chipaux "The Gamma Cube: a novel concept of gamma-ray telescope", Proc. SPIE 9144, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 91440B (24 July 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2055951

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

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.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available