Germanium (Compton) focal plane detectors for gamma-ray lenses

Abstract

With focusing of gamma rays in the nuclear-line energy regime establishing itself as a feasible and very promising approach for high-sensitivity gamma-ray studies of individual sources, optimizing the focal plane instrumentation for gamma-lens telescopes is a prime objective. The detector of choice for a focusing nuclear-line spectroscopy mission would be the one with the best energy resolution available over the energy range of interest: Germanium. Using a Compton detector focal plane has three advantages over monolithic detectors: additional knowledge about (Compton) events enhances background rejection capabilities, the inherently finely pixellated detector naturally allows the selection of events according to the focal spot size and position and could enable source imaging, and Compton detectors are inherently sensitive to gamma-ray polarization. Suitable Ge-strip detectors that could be assembled into a sensitive high-resolution focal plane for a gamma-ray lens are available today. They have been extensively tested in the laboratory and flown on the Nuclear Compton Telescope balloon from Ft. Sumner in 2005. In the course of the ACT vision mission study, an extensive simulation and analysis package for Compton telescopes has been assembled. We leverage off this work to explore achievable sensitivities for different Ge Compton focal plane configurations - and compare them to sensitivities achievable with less complex detectors - as a step towards determining an optimum configuration.