Development of electron tracking Compton camera for both balloon and future satellite experiments for MeV gamma-ray astronomy

Abstract

In order to explore MeV gamma-ray astronomy, we have developed the Electron Tracking Compton Camera (ETCC) consisting of a Time projection Chamber based on the micro pixel gas counter and pixel array scintillators. By measuring the track of a recoil electron in the TPC event by event, the ETCC measures the direction of each gamma-ray, and provides both good background rejection and an angular resolution over ~1 degree. A 1m-cubic size ETCC in satellite would be a good candidate for an All sky MeV gamma-ray survey of a wide band energy region of 0.1-100MeV with several ten times better sensitivity than COMPTEL. Already we carried out a balloon experiment with a small ETCC (Sub-MeV gamma ray Imaging Loaded-on-balloon Experiment: SMILE-I) in 2006, and measured diffuse cosmic and atmosphere gamma rays. We are now constructing a 30cm-cube ETCC to catch gamma-rays from the Crab and terrestrial gamma-ray bursts at the North Pole from 2013 (SMILE-II project). Terrestrial gamma-ray bursts are generated by relativistic electron precipitation in the Pole region. Recently performance of tracking a recoil electron has been dramatically improved, which may enable us to reach the ideal efficiency expected for the detector. In addition, we mention about the unique capability to find a high-z Gamma-Ray Bursts beyond z>10 by ETCC, in particular long duration GRBs over 1000 sec, which are expected to be due to POP-III stars.