Pre-flight calibration of the prototype Nuclear Compton Telescope

Jason D. Bowen; Mark E. Bandstra; Steven E. Boggs; Wayne Coburn; Cornelia B. Wunderer; Robert P. Lin; Mark Amman; Paul N. Luke; Morgan T. Burks; William Craig; Norman W. Madden; David M. Smith; Peter von Ballmoos; Pierre Jean

doi:10.1117/12.672252

13 June 2006 Pre-flight calibration of the prototype Nuclear Compton Telescope

Jason D. Bowen, Mark E. Bandstra, Steven E. Boggs, Wayne Coburn, Cornelia B. Wunderer, Robert P. Lin, Mark Amman, Paul N. Luke, Morgan T. Burks, William Craig, Norman W. Madden, David M. Smith, Peter von Ballmoos, Pierre Jean

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6266, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation II: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 626625 (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.672252
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT) is a balloon-borne soft gamma-ray (0.2MeV-10MeV) 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 (HPGe) strip detectors fabricated with amorphous Ge contacts. The novel ultra-compact design and new technologies allow NCT to achieve high efficiencies with excellent spectral resolution and background reduction. Energy and positioning calibration data was acquired pre-flight in Fort Sumner, NM after the full instrument integration. Here we discuss our calibration techniques and results, and detector efficiencies. Comparisons with simulations are presented as well.

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Jason D. Bowen, Mark E. Bandstra, Steven E. Boggs, Wayne Coburn, Cornelia B. Wunderer, Robert P. Lin, Mark Amman, Paul N. Luke, Morgan T. Burks, William Craig, Norman W. Madden, David M. Smith, Peter von Ballmoos, and Pierre Jean "Pre-flight calibration of the prototype Nuclear Compton Telescope", Proc. SPIE 6266, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation II: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 626625 (13 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.672252

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