X. Wu, R. Walter, M. Su, G. Ambrosi, P. Azzarello, M. Böttcher, J. Chang, M. Chernyakova, Y. Fan, C. Farnier, F. Gargano, I. Grenier, W. Hajdas, M. Mazziotta, M. Pearce, M. Pohl, A. Zdziarski
PANGU (the PAir-productioN Gamma-ray Unit) is a gamma-ray telescope with a wide field of view optimized for spectro-imaging, timing and polarization studies. It will map the gamma-ray sky from 10 MeV to a few GeV with unprecedented spatial resolution. This window on the Universe is unique to detect photons produced directly by relativistic particles, via the decay of neutral pions, or the annihilation or decay light from anti-matter and the putative light dark matter candidates. A wealth of questions can be probed among the most important themes of modern physics and astrophysics. The PANGU instrument is a pair-conversion gamma-ray telescope based on an innovative design of a silicon strip tracker. It is light, compact and accurate. It consists of 100 layers of silicon micro-strip detector of 80 x 80 cm2 in area, stacked to height of about 90 cm, and covered by an anticoincidence detector. PANGU relies on multiple scattering effects for energy measurement, reaching an energy resolution between 30-50% for 10 MeV – 1 GeV. The novel tracker will allow the first polarization measurement and provide the best angular resolution ever obtained in the soft gamma ray and GeV band.
The High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection (HERD) facility is one of several space astronomy payloads of the cosmic light house program onboard China's Space Station, which is planned for operation starting around 2020 for about 10 years. Beam test with a HERD prototype, to verify the HERD specifications and the reading out method of wavelength shifting fiber and image intensified CCD, was taken at CERN SPS in November, 2015. The prototype is composed of an array of 5*5*10 LYSO crystals, which is 1/40th of the scale of HERD calorimeter. Experimental results on the performances of the calorimeter are discussed.
S. N. Zhang, O. Adriani, S. Albergo, G. Ambrosi, Q. An, T. W. Bao, R. Battiston, X. J. Bi, Z. Cao, J. Y. Chai, J. Chang, G. M. Chen, Y. Chen, X. H. Cui, Z. G. Dai, R. D'Alessandro, Y. W. Dong, Y. Z. Fan, C. Q. Feng, H. Feng, Z. Y. Feng, X. H. Gao, F. Gargano, N. Giglietto, Q. B. Gou, Y. Q. Guo, B. L. Hu, H. B. Hu, H. H. He, G. S. Huang, J. Huang, Y. F. Huang, H. Li, L. Li, Y. G. Li, Z. Li, E. W. Liang, H. Liu, J. B. Liu, J. T. Liu, S. B. Liu, S. M. Liu, X. Liu, J. G. Lu, M. Mazziotta, N. Mori, S. Orsi, M. Pearce, M. Pohl, Z. Quan, F. Ryde, H. L. Shi, P. Spillantini, M. Su, J. C. Sun, X. L. Sun, Z. C. Tang, R. Walter, J. C. Wang, J. M. Wang, L. Wang, R. J. Wang, X. L. Wang, X. Y. Wang, Z. G. Wang, D. M. Wei, B. B. Wu, J. Wu, X. Wu, X. F. Wu, J. Q. Xia, H. L. Xiao, H. H. Xu, M. Xu, Z. Z. Xu, H. R. Yan, P. F. Yin, Y. W. Yu, Q. Yuan, M. Zha, L. Zhang, L. Y. Zhang, Y. Zhang, Y. J. Zhang, Y. L. Zhang, Z. G. Zhao
The High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection (HERD) facility is one of several space astronomy payloads of the cosmic lighthouse program onboard China's Space Station, which is planned for operation starting around 2020 for about 10 years. The main scientific objectives of HERD are indirect dark matter search, precise cosmic ray spectrum and composition measurements up to the knee energy, and high energy gamma-ray monitoring and survey. HERD is composed of a 3-D cubic calorimeter (CALO) surrounded by microstrip silicon trackers (STKs) from five sides except the bottom. CALO is made of about 104 cubes of LYSO crystals, corresponding to about 55 radiation lengths and 3 nuclear interaction lengths, respectively. The top STK microstrips of seven X-Y layers are sandwiched with tungsten converters to make precise directional measurements of incoming electrons and gamma-rays. In the baseline design, each of the four side SKTs is made of only three layers microstrips. All STKs will also be used for measuring the charge and incoming directions of cosmic rays, as well as identifying back scattered tracks. With this design, HERD can achieve the following performance: energy resolution of 1% for electrons and gamma-rays beyond 100 GeV, 20% for protons from 100 GeV to 1 PeV; electron/proton separation power better than 10-5; effective geometrical factors of >3 m2sr for electron and diffuse gamma-rays, >2 m2sr for cosmic ray nuclei. R and D is under way for reading out the LYSO signals with optical fiber coupled to image intensified CCD and the prototype of one layer of CALO.
We describe the instrument concept of a high angular resolution telescope dedicated to the sub-GeV (from ≥10 MeV to ≥1 GeV) gamma-ray photon detection. This mission, named PANGU (PAir-productioN Gamma-ray Unit), has been suggested as a candidate for the joint small mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). A wide range of topics of both astronomy and fundamental physics can be attacked with PANGU, covering Galactic and extragalactic cosmic-ray physics, extreme physics of a variety of extended (e.g. supernova remnants, galaxies, galaxy clusters) and compact (e.g. black holes, pulsars, gamma-ray bursts) objects, solar and terrestrial gamma-ray phenomena, and searching for dark matter decay and/or annihilation signature etc. The unprecedented point spread function can be achieved with a pair-production telescope with a large number of thin active tracking layers to precisely reconstruct the pair-produced electron and positron tracks. Scintillating fibers or thin silicon micro-strip detectors are suitable technology for such a tracker. The energy measurement is achieved by measuring the momentum of the electrons and positrons through a magnetic field. The innovated spectrometer approach provides superior photon pointing resolution, and is particular suitable in the sub-GeV range. The level of tracking precision makes it possible to measure the polarization of gamma rays, which would open up a new frontier in gamma-ray astronomy. The frequent full-sky survey at sub-GeV with PANGU's large field of view and significantly improved point spread function would provide crucial information to GeV-TeV astrophysics for current/future missions including Fermi, DAMPE, HERD, and CTA, and other multi-wavelength telescopes.
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