The Status of GLAST CsI Calorimeter

Abstract

GLAST is a gamma-ray observatory for celestial sources in the energy range from 20 MeV to 300 GeV. This is NASA project with launch anticipated in 2006. The principal instrument of the GLAST mission is the Large Area Telescope (LAT), consisting of an Anti Coincidence Detector (ACD), a silicon-strip detector Tracker (TKR) and a hodoscopic CsI Calorimeter (CAL). It consists of 16 identical modules arranged in a 4 x 4 array. Each module has horizontal dimensions 38 x 38 cm{sup 2} and active thickness 8.5 radiation length. It contains 96 CsI (Tl) crystals arranged in 8 layers with 12 crystals per layer. The scintillation light is measured by PIN photodiodes mounted on both ends of each crystal. The sum of signals at the two ends of the crystal provides the energy measurement. The difference in these signals provides the position measurement along the crystal. The calorimeter was designed to meet the goals of good energy resolution (better than 10% for photon energies 100 MeV-100 GeV), position resolution of {approx} 1 mm for photon energies > 1 GeV, and a rejection factor of > 100 for charged cosmic rays, under limitations on calorimeter weight (95 kg per module) and power consumption (6 W per module). The Monte Carlo simulation and prototype beam test results confirm that proposed design meets the requirements. Calorimeter production is planned to start in 2003.