6U MeV CubeSat Mission: A low-cost approach towards gamma-ray astronomy

Abstract

The low-energy gamma-ray (0.1-30 MeV) sky has been poorly observed since the decommissioning of the COMPTEL instrument on board the Compton Gamma-ray Observer (CGRO) satellite in 2000. The study of photons from this energy band (the MeV "gap") is, however, crucial to answer many unsolved questions in high-energy and multi-messenger astrophysics. Although several MeV gamma-ray missions have been proposed (e.g. AMEGO, e-ASTROGAM), these are mostly in the planning phase, and their launch is not expected until the next decade, at the earliest. Recently, there has been a proliferation of CubeSat missions proposed as "pathfinder" alternatives due to their low cost and faster cycles of implementation. Indeed, a MeV CubeSat for gamma-ray astronomy can be a suitable demonstrator for future, larger-scale MeV payloads. In this paper, a gamma-ray payload design with a silicon tracker and CsI calorimeter is proposed. We report the results of simulations to assess the performance of this payload possibility and compare these with other previous gamma-ray instruments.Comment: Submitted in Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems(SPIE). Manuscript# 23097G. 31 pages and 7 figure