Estimating the sky map in gamma-ray astronomy with a Compton telescope

Journal Article · Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 EST 1991 · IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/23.289353· OSTI ID:5039090

Herbert, T J ^[1]

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1. Houston Univ., TX (United States). Dept. of Electrical Engineering

Compton telescopes represent an effective design for {gamma}-ray astronomy in the 1-30 MeV range. However, the complexity of the system response to incident {gamma}-rays has restricted the formulation of optimal methods for processing the data. Since data is only acquired at considerable expense and difficulty a significant investment in both algorithm development and computer processing time are warranted. Current methods for processing low level data form the sky map as either the sum or product of the probabilities that each recorded {gamma}-ray originated from within an area of the sky map. Instead, we model the unknown sky map itself as the means of a Poisson process generating the {gamma}-ray recorded by the telescope. In this paper the authors formulate the probability density function of the data conditioned upon the sky map and derive an iterative algorithm for estimating the sky map by the method of maximum likelihood.

• OSTI ID: 5039090
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States), Vol. 38:2; ISSN 0018-9499
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
BACKGROUND RADIATION
ALGORITHMS
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
GAMMA ASTRONOMY
TELESCOPES
COMPTON EFFECT
COSMIC GAMMA SOURCES
DATA PROCESSING
ITERATIVE METHODS
MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD FIT
MEV RANGE
POISSON EQUATION
ASTRONOMY
BASIC INTERACTIONS
COSMIC RAY SOURCES
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
ELASTIC SCATTERING
ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERACTIONS
ENERGY RANGE
EQUATIONS
INTERACTIONS
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PROCESSING
RADIATIONS
SCATTERING
440103* - Radiation Instrumentation- Nuclear Spectroscopic Instrumentation