Gamma-ray imaging observations of the Crab and Cygnus regions
This dissertation presents the results from a balloon-borne experiment, referred to as the Directional Gamma-Ray Telescope (DGT), which is designed to image celestial gamma rays over the energy range 160 keV to 9.3 MeV. It utilizes a technique know as coded aperture imaging in order to obtain spatially resolved images of the sky with an angular resolution of 3.8/sup 0/. This detector is the first flight-ready instrument of this type operating at energies above 160 keV. The first successful balloon flight of this instrument took place on 1984 October 1-2. During the thirty hours in which the payload remained at float altitude, imaging observations of a number of sky regions were obtained, including observations of the Crab and Cygnus regions. The Crab Nebulapulsar was observed to have a featureless power-law spectrum, consistent with previous measurements. Emission from Cyg X-1 was observed up to approx. 10 MeV. At energies below 1 MeV, the data are consistent with a single-temperature inverse Compton model, with an electron temperature, kT/sub c/, of approx. 80 keV and an optical depth, r, of approx. 2.0.
- Research Organization:
- New Hampshire Univ., Durham (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6995967
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Gamma-ray observations of the Crab Region using a coded-aperture telescope
Observations of cosmic gamma ray sources and their contribution to the diffuse gamma ray background
Related Subjects
GENERAL PHYSICS
COSMIC GAMMA SOURCES
CRAB NEBULA
GAMMA ASTRONOMY
PULSARS
STAR CLUSTERS
KEV RANGE 100-1000
MEV RANGE 01-10
ASTRONOMY
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
COSMIC RAY SOURCES
ENERGY RANGE
KEV RANGE
MEV RANGE
NEBULAE
SUPERNOVA REMNANTS
640102* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Stars & Quasi-Stellar
Radio & X-Ray Sources