English

MeVCube: a CubeSat for MeV astronomy

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics 2022-08-10 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

Despite the impressive progresses achieved both by X-ray and gamma-ray observatories in the last decades, the energy range between 200keV\sim 200\,\mathrm{keV} and 50MeV\sim 50\,\mathrm{MeV} remains poorly explored. COMPTEL, on-board CGRO (1991-2000), was the last telescope to accomplish a complete survey of the MeV-sky with a relatively modest sensitivity. Missions like AMEGO have been proposed for the future, in order to fill this gap in observation; however, the time-scale for development and launch is about 10 years. On a shorter time-scale, a different approach may be profitable: MeV observations can be performed by a Compton telescope flying on a CubeSat. MeVCube is a 6U CubeSat concept currently under investigation at DESY, that could cover the energy range between hundreds of keV up to few MeVs with a sensitivity comparable to that of missions like COMPTEL and INTEGRAL. The Compton camera is based on pixelated Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride (CdZnTe) semiconductor detectors, coupled with low-power read-out electronics (ASIC, VATA450.3), ensuring a high detection efficiency and excellent energy resolution. In this work I will show measurements of the performance of a custom design CdZnTe detector and extrapolations of the expected telescope performance based on these measurements as well as simulations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2108.03307,
  title  = {MeVCube: a CubeSat for MeV astronomy},
  author = {Giulio Lucchetta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.03307},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

Proceedings of the 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2021)

R2 v1 2026-06-24T04:54:11.572Z