Distinguishing Photons from Muons using the Time-Over-Threshold in the Tracker from the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope

Abstract

The Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope, GLAST, is a large scientific instrument designed to study gamma ray activity in space. GLAST is designed to detect gamma rays with greater energy and angular resolution then previously done by gamma ray telescopes. A portion of GLAST is the Large Area Space Telescope (LAT), which is made up of sixteen identical towers encased in an anticoincidence detector. The source of the data for this study is a simulation of one of these towers. The LAT will detect gamma rays by using a technique known as pair-conversion. When a gamma ray slams into a layer of tungsten in the tower it creates a pair of subatomic particles (an electron and its anti-matter counterpart, a positron). Where this pair hits the detector has an effect on the photon's signal distribution. When a specific series of cuts are done a difference in the gamma ray signal as compared to the background signal is seen. This shape difference will ideally be the crux of detecting gamma rays. This study is a small portion of the Total preparations done to enhance the gamma ray signal coming into the detector.