0000000000246183

AUTHOR

James D. Kurfess

Development and calibration of the tracking Compton/Pair telescope MEGA

Abstract We describe the development and tests of the prototype for a new telescope for Medium Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy (MEGA) in the energy band 0.4–50 MeV. As a successor to COMPTEL and EGRET (at low energies), MEGA aims to improve the sensitivity for astronomical sources by at least an order of magnitude. It could thus fill the severe sensitivity gap between scheduled or operating hard-X-ray and high-energy gamma-ray missions and open the way for a future Advanced Compton Telescope. MEGA records and images γ-rays by completely tracking Compton and Pair creation events in a stack of double-sided Si-strip track detectors surrounded by a pixelated CsI calorimeter. A scaled down prototype …

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Gamma-Ray and Radio Observations of PSR B1509-58

Abstract : We report concurrent radio and gamma-ray observations of PSR B1509-58 carried out by the Parkes Radio Telescope and by the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) and the Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE) on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO-Gamma-ray light curves fitted at several energies between ~ 20-500 keV yield a phase offset with respect to the radio pulse that is independent of energy, with an average value 0.32 plus or minus 0.02. Although this value is larger by 0.07 than that reported by Kawai et al., the difference is not statistically significant (only~2 sigma) when account is taken of the uncertainty associated with their result. We b…

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