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Session 9 - High-Energy Phenomena.
Display session, Monday, June 08
Atlas Ballroom,
Since its launch in April of 1991, the COMPTEL experiment has collected a large volume of data on the gamma-ray sky in the 0.75-30 MeV energy range. These data are unique in the sense that no other Compton imaging telescope operating in the 0.75-30 MeV energy range has ever been flown in orbit. With a large mission database, covering a variety of background conditions and source aspects, the COMPTEL collaboration continues to make progress in the understanding of these data. These improvements in our understanding of the nature of the data can be applied to refinements in the data analysis. Some of these refinements have, in some cases, led to significant improvements in the quality of the imaging results. Here we shall review some of the more recent developments in COMPTEL data analysis. These include: 1) improvements in the reduction of the event data (which involves the reprocessing of the entire set of flight data); 2) the use of more restrictive event selections to improve the signal-to-noise; and 3) improvements in the imaging response (PSF) to incorporate changes due to variations in the detector threshold levels. In addition, we shall present some examples of how these improvements impact the resulting images (and flux measurements) that are derived from the flight data. These results raise the chances of additional scientific returns from the COMPTEL data and illustrate the added value of a long-term space mission.
