2014/07/17 by Xin Wu, Meng Su, Alessandro Bravar +4 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Angular resolution (graph drawing) #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Galaxy #Gamma-ray astronomy #Gamma-ray burst #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #High-energy astronomy #Photon #Telescope #Tracking (education) #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.IM #physics.ins-det
paper · pdf · doi:10.1117/12.2057251
15 pages, 6 Figures; Oral presention at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2014, Ultraviolet to Gamma ray, Montréal, Quebec, Canada; Paper 9144-130
arxiv created 2014/07/17 · openalex publication_date 2014/07/25 · arxiv updated 2015/06/22 · openalex created_date 2018/08/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We describe the instrument concept of a high angular resolution telescope dedicated to the sub-GeV (from ≥10 MeV to ≥1 GeV) gamma-ray photon detection. This mission, named PANGU (PAir-productioN Gamma-ray Unit), has been suggested as a candidate for the joint small mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). A wide range of topics of both astronomy and fundamental physics can be attacked with PANGU, covering Galactic and extragalactic cosmic-ray physics, extreme physics of a variety of extended (e.g. supernova remnants, galaxies, galaxy clusters) and compact (e.g. black holes, pulsars, gamma-ray bursts) objects, solar and terrestrial gamma-ray phenomena, and searching for dark matter decay and/or annihilation signature etc. The unprecedented point spread function can be achieved with a pair-production telescope with a large number of thin active tracking layers to precisely reconstruct the pair-produced electron and positron tracks. Scintillating fibers or thin silicon micro-strip detectors are suitable technology for such a tracker. The energy measurement is achieved by measuring the momentum of the electrons and positrons through a magnetic field. The innovated spectrometer approach provides superior photon pointing resolution, and is particular suitable in the sub-GeV range. The level of tracking precision makes it possible to measure the polarization of gamma rays, which would open up a new frontier in gamma-ray astronomy. The frequent full-sky survey at sub-GeV with PANGU's large field of view and significantly improved point spread function would provide crucial information to GeV-TeV astrophysics for current/future missions including Fermi, DAMPE, HERD, and CTA, and other multi-wavelength telescopes.