Development of polarimeter for gamma-ray bursts onboard the solar-powered sail mission

Daisuke Yonetoku; Toshio Murakami; Hiroki Masui; Hironobu Kodaira; Yuka Aoyama; Shuichi Gunji; Fuyuki Tokanai; Tatehiro Mihara

doi:10.1117/12.670134

13 June 2006 Development of polarimeter for gamma-ray bursts onboard the solar-powered sail mission

Daisuke Yonetoku, Toshio Murakami, Hiroki Masui, Hironobu Kodaira, Yuka Aoyama, Shuichi Gunji, Fuyuki Tokanai, Tatehiro Mihara

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6266, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation II: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 62662C (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670134
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

The solar powered sail spacecraft using a huge sail is a next Japanese engineering verification satellite planned to launch in 2012. It has a hybrid propulsion system with ion engines and a huge solar sail panel of 50 m in diameter. Based on the present mission plan, it will take about 6 years to cruise to Jupiter via Earth swing-bys and 5 more years to reach the Jovian L4 Trojan asteroids. During its cruising phase, we plan to mount a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detector with polarization detection capability which also works as one of the interplanetary network (IPN) to determine the GRB positions. The emission mechanism of GRB is thought to be the synchrotron radiation from the relativistic outflows. If the emission mechanism of GRBs is really synchrotron radiation, the emitted gamma-rays should be strongly polarized. The detection principle is the anisotropy of the Compton scattering. The Compton-scattered gamma-ray photons show the strongly biased distribution toward the vertical direction against the oscillating electric field vector. The design concept of our detector is simple but carefully avoid a fake modulation. The plastic scintillator in one Compton-length as the scattering body is placed at the center, and 12 CsI scintillators are allocated around it. To avoid a fake modulation through the satellite body scattering, these detectors work in coincidence mode. The coincidence also helps to reduce the particle background. We will use the VA-TA ASIC and FPGA as the analog readout and the digital event processing, respectively, to make the detector weight of almost 2.0 kg. In this paper, we introduce the solar sail mission and show the overview of gamma-ray polarimeter.

Citation Download Citation

Daisuke Yonetoku, Toshio Murakami, Hiroki Masui, Hironobu Kodaira, Yuka Aoyama, Shuichi Gunji, Fuyuki Tokanai, and Tatehiro Mihara "Development of polarimeter for gamma-ray bursts onboard the solar-powered sail mission", Proc. SPIE 6266, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation II: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 62662C (13 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670134

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available