Simulation of the instrument performance of the Antarctic Demonstrator for the Advanced Particle-astrophysics Telescope in the presence of the MeV background

Wenlei Chen, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Wenlei Chen, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
James H. Buckley, Washington University in St. Louis
Corrado Altomare, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bari
Matthew Andrew, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Blake Bal, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
Richard G. Bose, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
Dana Braun, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
James H. Buckley, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
Jeremy Buhler, McKelvey School of Engineering
Eric Burns, Louisiana State University
Roger D. Chamberlain, McKelvey School of Engineering
Michael L. Cherry, Louisiana State University
Leonardo Di Venere, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bari
Jeffrey Dumonthier, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Manel Errando, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
Stefan Funk, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Priya Ghosh, The Catholic University of America
Francesco Giordano, Politecnico di Bari
Jonah Hoffman, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
Ye Htet, McKelvey School of Engineering
Zachary Hughes, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
Aera Jung, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Patrick L. Kelly, College of Science and Engineering
John F. Krizmanic, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Makiko Kuwahara, UH College of Engineering
Francesco Licciulli, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bari
Gang Liu, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Leonarda Lorusso, Politecnico di Bari
Mario Nicola Mazziotta, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bari
John Grant Mitchell, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
John W. Mitchell, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Georgia A. de Nolfo, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

9-27-2024

Abstract

The Advanced Particle-astrophysics Telescope (APT) is a mission concept of a next-generation space-based gamma-ray and cosmic-ray observatory. We present the simulation of the instrument performance of the Antarctic Demonstrator for APT (ADAPT), a proposed long-duration balloon instrument based on a small portion of the full APT detector. We construct a semianalytical model of the MeV-GeV background for ADAPT based on observations from previous high-altitude balloon experiments and simulations of the upper atmosphere. We find that the ADAPT background is dominated by the gamma-ray albedo of the earth’s atmosphere. In the presence of this background, we simulate a detector design based on a 45 cm × 45 cm detector composed of 8 thin layers of CsI:Na scintillators. We develop and optimize reconstruction algorithms for gamma-rays from a few hundreds of keV up to a few GeV energies. We present results of a complete off-line analysis to derive the best reconstruction methods. At photon energies from 30 MeV to a few GeV, ADAPT could provide degree-level to sub-degree-level observations of galactic and extragalactic gamma-rays with an effective area of above 0.05 m2. In the MeV regime, our simulation shows that ADAPT can achieve a degree-level localization accuracy for gamma-ray bursts down to about 1 MeV/cm2 in the presence of the gamma-ray and cosmic-ray background. ADAPT would be able to detect a few GRBs during the planned Antarctic balloon flight.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Proceedings of Science

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