A compact and modular X and gamma-ray imaging spectrometer (XGIS) has been designed as one of the instruments foreseen on-board the THESEUS mission proposed in response to the ESA M5 call. The experiment envisages the use of CsI scintillator bars read out at both ends by single-cell 25 mm 2 Silicon Drift Detectors. Events absorbed in the Silicon layer (lower energy X rays) and events absorbed in the scintillator crystal (higher energy X rays and Gamma-rays) are discriminated using the on-board electronics. A coded mask provides imaging capabilities at low energies, thus allowing a compact and sensitive instrument in a wide energy band (~2 keV up to ~20 MeV). The instrument design, expected performance and the characterization performed on a series of laboratory prototypes are discussed.
@article{arxiv.1802.01674,
title = {The X-Gamma Imaging Spectrometer (XGIS) onboard THESEUS},
author = {R. Campana and F. Fuschino and C. Labanti and L. Amati and S. Mereghetti and M. Fiorini and F. Frontera and G. Baldazzi and P. Bellutti and G. Borghi and I. Elmi and Y. Evangelista and M. Feroci and F. Ficorella and M. Orlandini and A. Picciotto and M. Marisaldi and A. Rachevski and M. Uslenghi and A. Vacchi and G. Zampa and N. Zampa and N. Zorzi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.01674},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
To be published in the Proceedings of the THESEUS Workshop 2017 (http://www.isdc.unige.ch/theseus/workshop2017.html), Journal of the Italian Astronomical Society (Mem.SAIt), Editors L. Amati, E. Bozzo, M. Della Valle, D. Gotz, P. O'Brien. Details on the THESEUS mission concept can be found in the white paper Amati et al. 2017 (arXiv:171004638) and Stratta et al. 2017 (arXiv:1712.08153)