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- Mizuno, T., et al.
(author)
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High sensitivity balloon-borne hard X-ray/soft Gamma-Ray Polarimeter PoGOLite
- 2007
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In: Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2007. NSS ’07. IEEE. - : IEEE. - 9781424409228 ; , s. 2538-2544
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Polarized Gamma-ray Observer - Lightweight version (PoGOLite) is a new balloon experiment capable of detecting 10% polarization from a 200 mCrab source in the 25-80 keV energy range in a single 6-hour flight for the first time. Polarization measurements of hard X-rays and soft gamma-rays are expected to provide a powerful probe into high-energy emission mechanisms as well as source geometries. PoGOLite uses Compton scattering and photo-absorption to measure polarization in an array of 217 well-type phoswich detector cells made of plastic and BGO scintillators. The adoption of a well-type phoswich counter concept and a thick polyethylene neutron shield provides a narrow field-of-view (1.25 msr), a large effective area ( gt; 250 cm2 at 40-50 keV), a high modulation factor (more than 25%) and the low background ( 100 mCrab) required to conduct high-sensitivity polarization measurements. Through tests in laboratories and accelerator facilities of a scaled-down prototype with the front-end electronics of flight design and an extensive study by Monte Carlo simulation, we have demonstrated high instrument performance. PoGOLite will be ready for a first engineering flight in 2009 and a science flight in 2010, during which polarization signals from the Crab Nebula/pulsar, Cygnus X-1 and other objects will be observed.
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