Speaker
Description
Since the end of the COMPTEL mission, almost 20 years ago, there haven’t been any new space telescopes able to improve the observations in the electromagnetic energy region above 1 MeV. This energy band, where Compton scattering is the dominating interaction with matter, is of fundamental importance for the understanding of the emission mechanisms in several astrophysical source types.
Through GEANT 4 simulations, we explore the viability of future observations by means of a nano-satellite Compton telescope. In particular, we aim to achieve COMPTEL's sensitivity level near 1 MeV.
Low costs and ability to be relatively quickly developed and launched would allow a short-term solution for the lack of new observations in the MeV region, before any large mission takes over.