Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 145, 311-321

Event reconstruction in high resolution Compton telescopes

S.E. Boggs¹ - P. Jean²

Send offprint request: S.E. Boggs

1 - Space Radiation Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, MC 220-47, Pasadena, CA 91125, U.S.A.
e-mail: boggs@srl.caltech.edu
2 - Centre d'Étude Spatiale des Rayonnements, UPS-CNRS, Toulouse, France
e-mail: Pierre.Jean@cesr.fr

Received April 7; accepted May 9, 2000

Abstract:

The development of germanium Compton telescopes for nuclear $\gamma$-ray astrophysics ( $\sim 0.2-20$ MeV) requires new event reconstruction techniques to accurately determine the initial direction and energy of photon events, as well as to consistently reject background events. This paper describes techniques for event reconstruction, accounting for realistic instrument/detector performance and uncertainties. An especially important technique is Compton Kinematic Discrimination, which allows proper interaction ordering and background rejection with high probabilities. The use of these techniques are crucial for the realistic evaluation of the performance and sensitivity of any germanium Compton telescope configuration.

Key words: gamma rays: observations -- telescopes -- techniques: spectroscopic -- techniques: image processing -- instrumentation: detectors