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Julia Kregenow (Space Sciences Laboratory & Dept. of Astronomy, University of CA, Berkeley), S.E. Boggs (Space Sciences Laboratory & Dept. of Physics, University of CA, Berkeley), W. Coburn, R.P. Lin, D.M. Smith (Space Sciences Laboratory, University of CA, Berkeley), M.S. Amman, M.T. Burks, P.N. Luke, N.W. Madden (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of CA, Berkeley), P. Jean, P. von Ballmoos (Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, CNRS/UPS, Toulouse Cedex, France), W. Craig, K. Ziock (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA)
The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT) is a balloon-borne soft gamma-ray (0.2-15 MeV) telescope designed to study astrophysical sources of nuclear line emission and polarization. NCT takes advantages of major advances in gamma-ray tracking capabilties to improve sensitvity to astrophysical gamma-ray sources. The heart of NCT is an array of 12 novel, large volume germanium detectors with full 3D position resolution and very high spectral resolution. Our collaboration is building a 2-detector prototype of NCT for a test balloon flight in September 2003. This prototype flight will critically test the novel instrument technologies, analysis techniques, and background rejection procedures developed for gamma-ray tracking telescopes. We will present the design, status, and expected performance of this prototype NCT instrument, and describe the mission's science goals. We will also present an overview of the use of gamma-ray tracking in Compton telescopes. This project is funded under the NASA ROSS program.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #3
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.