| 1. |
- Andersson, V., et al.
(författare)
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Large-Area Balloon-Borne Polarized Gamma Ray Observer (PoGO)
- 2005
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 22nd Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics at Stanford. ; , s. 736-743
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- We are developing a new balloon-borne instrument (PoGO), to measure polarization of soft gamma rays (30-200 keV) using asymmetry in azimuth angle distribution of Compton scattering. PoGO is designed to detect 10 % polarization in 100mCrab sources in a 6-8 hour observation and bring a new dimension to studies on gamma ray emission/transportation mechanism in pulsars, AGNs, black hole binaries, and neutron star surface. The concept is an adaptation to polarization measurements of well-type phoswich counter consisting of a fast plastic scintillator (the detection part), a slow plastic scintillator (the active collimator) and a BGO scintillator (the bottom anti-counter). PoGO consists of close-packed array of 217 hexagonal well-type phoswich counters and has a narrow field-of-view (~ 5 deg2) to reduce possible source confusion. A prototype instrument has been tested in the polarized soft gamma-ray beams at Advanced Photon Source (ANL) and at Photon Factory (KEK). On the results, the polarization dependence of EGS4 has been validated and that of Geant4 has been corrected.
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| 2. |
- Peacock, Christopher S, et al.
(författare)
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Comparative genomic analysis of three Leishmania species that cause diverse human disease.
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 39:7, s. 839-847
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Leishmania parasites cause a broad spectrum of clinical disease. Here we report the sequencing of the genomes of two species of Leishmania: Leishmania infantum and Leishmania braziliensis. The comparison of these sequences with the published genome of Leishmania major reveals marked conservation of synteny and identifies only 200 genes with a differential distribution between the three species. L. braziliensis, contrary to Leishmania species examined so far, possesses components of a putative RNA-mediated interference pathway, telomere-associated transposable elements and spliced leader–associated SLACS retrotransposons. We show that pseudogene formation and gene loss are the principal forces shaping the different genomes. Genes that are differentially distributed between the species encode proteins implicated in host-pathogen interactions and parasite survival in the macrophage.
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| 3. |
- Pearce, Mark, et al.
(författare)
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PoGOLite : A balloon-borne soft gamma-ray polarimeter
- 2007
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 30th International Cosmic Ray Conference, ICRC 2007. - : Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. ; , s. 479-482
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Polarized gamma-rays are expected from a wide variety of sources including rotationpowered pulsars, accreting black holes and neutron stars, and jet-dominated active galaxies. Polarization measurements provide a powerful probe of the gamma-ray emission mechanism and the distribution of magnetic and radiation fields around the source. No measurements have been performed in the soft gamma-ray band where non-thermal processes are expected to produce high degrees of polarization. The PoGOLite experiment applies well-type phoswich detector technology to polarization measurements in the 25 - 80 keV energy range. The instrument uses Compton scattering and photoabsorption in an array of 217 phoswich detector cells made of plastic and BGO scintillators, and surrounded by active BGO shields. A prototype of the flight instrument has been tested with polarized gammarays and background generated with radioactive sources. The test results and computer simulations confirm that the instrument can detect 10% polarization of a 200 mCrab source in one 6 hour balloon observation. In flight, targets are constrained to within better than 5% of the field-of-view (~5 degrees squared) in order to maximize the effective detection area during observations. The pointing direction on the sky is determined by an attitude control system comprising star trackers, differential GPS receiver system, gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometers which provide correction signals to a reaction wheel and torque motor system. Additionally, the entire polarimeter assembly rotates around its viewing axis to minimize systematic bias during observations. Flights are foreseen to start in 2009- 2010 and will target northern sky sources including the Crab pulsar/nebula, Cygnus X-1, and Hercules X-1. These observations will provide valuable information about the pulsar emission mechanism, the geometry around the black hole, and photon transportation in the strongly magnetized neutron star surface, respectively. Future goals include a long duration balloon flight from the Esrange facility in Northern Sweden to Canada.
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| 4. |
- Kanai, Y., et al.
(författare)
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Beam test of a prototype phoswich detector assembly for the PoGOLite astronomical soft gamma-ray polarimeter
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 570:1, s. 61-71
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report about the beam test on a prototype of the balloon-based astronomical soft gamma-ray polarimeter, PoGOLite (Polarized Gamma-ray Observer-Light Version) conducted at KEK Photon Factory, a synchrotron radiation facility in Japan. The synchrotron beam was set at 30, 50, and 70 keV and its polarization was monitored by a calibrated polarimeter. The goal of the experiment was to validate the flight design of the polarimeter. PoGOLite is designed to measure polarization by detecting a Compton scattering and the subsequent photo-absorption in an array of 217 well-type phoswich detector cells (PDCs). The test setup included a first flight model PDC and a front-end electronics to select and reconstruct valid Compton scattering events. The experiment has verified that the flight PDC can detect recoil electrons and select valid Compton scattering events down to 30 keV from background. The measure azimuthal modulations (34.4%, 35.8% and 37.2% at 30, 50, and 70 keV, respectively) agreed within 10% (relative) with the predictions by Geant4 implemented with dependence on the initial and final photon polarizations.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Mizuno, T., et al.
(författare)
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High sensitivity balloon-borne hard X-ray/soft Gamma-Ray Polarimeter PoGOLite
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2007. NSS ’07. IEEE. - : IEEE. - 9781424409228 ; , s. 2538-2544
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)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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| 7. |
- Tanaka, T., et al.
(författare)
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Data acquisition system for the PoGOLite astronomical hard X-ray polarimeter
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2007. - 9781424409228 ; , s. 445-449, s. 445-449
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The PoGOLite is a new balloon-borne instrument to measure the polarization of hard X-rays/soft gamma-rays in the 25-80 keV energy range for the first time. In order to detect the polarization, PoGOLite measures the azimuthal angle asymmetry of Compton scattering and the subsequent photo-absorption in an array of detectors. This array consists of 217 well-type phoswich detector cells (PDCs) surrounded by a side anti-coincidence shield (SAS) composed of 54 segments of BGO crystals. At balloon altitude, the intensity of backgrounds due to cosmic-ray charged particles, atmospheric gamma-rays and neutrons is extremely high, typically a few hundred Hz per unit. Hence the data acquisition (DAQ) system of PoGOLite is required to handle more than 270 signals simultaneously, and detect weak signals from astrophysical objects (100mCrab, 1.5 cs(-1) in 25-80 keV) under such a severe environment. We have developed a new DAQ system consisting of front-end electronics, waveform digitizer, Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and a microprocessor. In this system, all output signals of PDC / SAS are fed into individual charge-sensitive amplifier and then digitized to 12 bit accuracy at 24 MSa/s by pipelined analog to digital converters. A DAQ board for the PDC records waveforms which will be examined in an off-line analysis to distinguish signals from the background events and measure the energy spectrum and polarization of targets. A board for the SAS records hit pattern to be used for background rejection. It also continuously records a pulse-height analysis (PHA) histogram to monitor incident background flux. These basic functions of the DAQ system were verified in a series of beam tests.
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