The nuclear compton telescope: A balloon-borne soft γ-ray spectrometer, polarimeter, and imager

Our collaboration has begun the design and development of a prototype high resolution Compton telescope utilizing 3-D imaging germanium detectors. The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT) is a balloon-borne soft gamma-ray (0.2–15 MeV) telescope designed to study astrophysical sources of nuclear line emission and polarization. NCT is a prototype design for the Advanced Compton Telescope, to study gamma-ray radiation with very high spectral resolution, moderate angular resolution, and high sensitivity. The instrument has a novel, ultra-compact design optimized for studying nuclear line emission in the critical 0.5–2 MeV range, and polarization in the 0.2–0.5 MeV range. We have proposed to develop and fly NCT on a conventional US balloon flight in Summer of 2004. This first flight will perform gamma-ray polarization measurements the Crab nebula, Crab pulsar, and Cyg X-1, and 26Al emission from the Cygnus Region. This flight will critically test the novel instrument technologies and analysis techniques we have dev...