Exploring the MeV Sky with a Combined Coded Mask and Compton Telescope: The Galactic Explorer with a Coded Aperture Mask Compton Telescope (GECCO)

Autor: Elena Orlando, Eugenio Bottacini, A.A. Moiseev, Arash Bodaghee, Werner Collmar, Torsten Ensslin, Igor V. Moskalenko, Michela Negro, Stefano Profumo, Seth W. Digel, David J. Thompson, Matthew G. Baring, Aleksey Bolotnikov, Nicholas Cannady, Gabriella A. Carini, Vincent Eberle, Isabelle A. Grenier, Alice K. Harding, Dieter Hartmann, Sven Herrmann, Matthew Kerr, Roman Krivonos, Philippe Laurent, Francesco Longo, Aldo Morselli, Bernard Philips, Makoto Sasaki, Peter Shawhan, Daniel Shy, Gerry Skinner, Lucas D. Smith, Floyd W. Stecker, Andrew Strong, Steven Sturner, John A. Tomsick, Zorawar Wadiasingh, Richard S. Woolf, Eric Yates, Klaus-Peter Ziock, Andreas Zoglauer
Přispěvatelé: Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation (AIM (UMR_7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112)), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7), Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers (IRFU), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris-Saclay, Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation (AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: JCAP
JCAP, 2022, 07 (07), pp.036. ⟨10.1088/1475-7516/2022/07/036⟩
Popis: The sky at MeV energies is currently poorly explored. Here we present an innovative mission concept that builds on and improves past and currently proposed missions at such energies. We outline the motivations for combining a coded mask and a Compton telescope and we define the scientific goals of such a mission. The Galactic Explorer with a Coded Aperture Mask Compton Telescope (GECCO) is a novel concept for a next-generation telescope covering hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray energies. The potential and importance of this approach that bridges the observational gap in the MeV energy range are presented. With the unprecedented angular resolution of the coded mask telescope combined with the sensitive Compton telescope, a mission such as GECCO can disentangle the discrete sources from the truly diffuse emission. Individual Galactic and extragalactic sources are detected. This also allows to understand the gamma-ray Galactic center excess and the Fermi Bubbles, and to trace the low-energy cosmic rays, and their propagation in the Galaxy. Nuclear and annihilation lines are spatially and spectrally resolved from the continuum emission and from sources, addressing the role of low-energy cosmic rays in star formation and galaxy evolution, the origin of the 511 keV positron line, fundamental physics, and the chemical enrichment in the Galaxy. Such an instrument also detects explosive transient gamma-ray sources, which enable identifying and studying the astrophysical objects that produce gravitational waves and neutrinos in a multi-messenger context. By looking at a poorly explored energy band it also allows discoveries of new astrophysical phenomena.
16 pages. Contact authors: Elena Orlando, Eugenio Bottacini
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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