Pushing the limits of NuSTAR detectors

Brian W. Grefenstette; W. Rick Cook; Fiona A. Harrison; Takao Kitaguchi; Kristin K. Madsen; Hiromasa Miyasaka; Sean N. Pike

doi:10.1117/12.2312844

9 August 2018 Pushing the limits of NuSTAR detectors

Brian W. Grefenstette, W. Rick Cook, Fiona A. Harrison, Takao Kitaguchi, Kristin K. Madsen, Hiromasa Miyasaka, Sean N. Pike

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10709, High Energy, Optical, and Infrared Detectors for Astronomy VIII; 107092V (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312844
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, United States

Abstract

NuSTAR (the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ARray) is a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) mission launched in June of 2012. Since its launch, NuSTAR has been the preeminent instrument for spectroscopic analysis of the hard X-ray sky over the 3-80 keV bandpass. The low energy side of the bandpass is limited by the absorption along the photon path as well as by the ability of the pixels to trigger on incident photons. The on-board calibration source does not have a low-energy line that we can use to calibrate this part of the response, so instead we use the "nearest-neighbor" readout in the NuSTAR detector architecture to calibrate the individual pixel thresholds for all 8 flight detectors on both focal plane modules (FPMs). These threshold measurements feed back into the quantum efficiency of the detectors at low (<5 keV) energies and, once well-calibrated, may allow the use of NuSTAR data below the current 3 keV limit.

Citation Download Citation

Brian W. Grefenstette, W. Rick Cook, Fiona A. Harrison, Takao Kitaguchi, Kristin K. Madsen, Hiromasa Miyasaka, and Sean N. Pike "Pushing the limits of NuSTAR detectors", Proc. SPIE 10709, High Energy, Optical, and Infrared Detectors for Astronomy VIII, 107092V (9 August 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312844

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