SPI/INTEGRAL in-flight performance

Roques, J. P.; Schanne, S.; Kienlin, A. von; Knödlseder, J.; Briet, R.; Bouchet, L.; Paul, P.; Boggs, S. E.; Caraveo, P. A.; Cassé, Michel; Cordier, B.; Diehl, R.; Durouchoux, Ph.; Jean, P.; Leleux, Pierre; Lichti, G.; Mandrou, P.; Matteson, J. L.; Sánchez, F.; Schönfelder, V.; Skinner, G.; Strong, A. W.; Teegarden, B. J.; Védrenne, G.; Ballmoos, P. von; Wunderer, C.

doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20031501

Cited by 160 publications

(149 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The in-flight 3σ narrow-line sensitivity of the spectrometer SPI on board the INTEGRAL satellite is 3 × 10 −5 cm −2 s −1 at ∼1 MeV for a 10 6 s exposure (Roques et al 2003). The equivalent for COMPTEL on board the CGRO satellite is 6 × 10 −5 cm −2 s −1 (Schoenfelder et al 1993).…”

Section: Review Of Sn Ia Gamma-ray Observationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

REVEALING TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA PHYSICS WITH COSMIC RATES AND NUCLEAR GAMMA RAYS

Horiuchi¹,

Beacom²

2010

ApJ

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Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) remain mysterious despite their central importance in cosmology and their rapidly increasing discovery rate. The progenitors of SNe Ia can be probed by the delay time between progenitor birth and explosion as SNe Ia. The explosions and progenitors of SNe Ia can be probed by MeV nuclear gamma rays emitted in the decays of radioactive nickel and cobalt into iron. We compare the cosmic star formation and SN Ia rates, finding that their different redshift evolution requires a large fraction of SNe Ia to have large delay times. A delay-time distribution of the form t −α with α = 1.0 ± 0.3 provides a good fit, implying that 50% of SNe Ia explode more than ∼1 Gyr after progenitor birth. The extrapolation of the cosmic SN Ia rate to z = 0 agrees with the rate we deduce from catalogs of local SNe Ia. We investigate prospects for gamma-ray telescopes to exploit the facts that escaping gamma rays directly reveal the power source of SNe Ia and uniquely provide tomography of the expanding ejecta. We find large improvements relative to earlier studies by Gehrels et al. in 1987 andWoosley in 1997 due to larger and more certain SN Ia rates and advances in gamma-ray detectors. The proposed Advanced Compton Telescope, with a narrow-line sensitivity ∼60 times better than that of current satellites, would, on an annual basis, detect up to ∼100 SNe Ia (3σ ) and provide revolutionary model discrimination for SNe Ia within 20 Mpc, with gamma-ray light curves measured with ∼10σ significance daily for ∼100 days. Even more modest improvements in detector sensitivity would open a new and invaluable astronomy with frequent SN Ia gamma-ray detections.

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Section: Review Of Sn Ia Gamma-ray Observationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

REVEALING TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA PHYSICS WITH COSMIC RATES AND NUCLEAR GAMMA RAYS

Horiuchi¹,

Beacom²

2010

ApJ

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“…Operating in the 20 keV-8 MeV band, SPI uses germanium detectors to provide high spectral resolution while imaging is performed through the coded mask technique (Roques et al 2003). The observational strategy of the INTE-GRAL mission is to sample the region of interest by means of 30-40 minute long fixed pointings (the so-called science windows), each separated by a 2 • angular distance (see Jensen et al 2003 for details).…”

Section: Instrumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability and Spectral Modeling of the Hard X-Ray Emission of Gx 339–4 in a Bright Low/Hard State

Droulans

Belmont

Malzac

et al. 2010

ApJ

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We study the high-energy emission of the Galactic black hole candidate GX 339−4 using INTEGRAL/SPI and simultaneous RXTE/PCA data. By the end of 2007 January, when it reached its peak luminosity in hard X-rays, the source was in a bright hard state. The SPectrometer on INTEGRAL (SPI) data from this period show a good signal-to-noise ratio, allowing a detailed study of the spectral energy distribution up to several hundred keV. As a main result, we report on the detection of a variable hard spectral feature ( 150 keV) which represents a significant excess with respect to the cutoff power-law shape of the spectrum. The SPI data suggest that the intensity of this feature is positively correlated with the 25-50 keV luminosity of the source and the associated variability timescale is shorter than 7 hr. The simultaneous Proportional Counter Array data, however, show no significant change in the spectral shape, indicating that the source is not undergoing a canonical state transition. We analyzed the broadband spectra in the lights of several physical models, assuming different heating mechanisms and properties of the Comptonizing plasma. For the first time, we performed quantitative model fitting with the new versatile Comptonization code belm, accounting self-consistently for the presence of a magnetic field. We show that a magnetized medium subject to pure non-thermal electron acceleration provides a framework for a physically consistent interpretation of the observed 4-500 keV emission. Moreover, we find that the spectral variability might be triggered by the variations of only one physical parameter, namely the magnetic field strength. Therefore, it appears that the magnetic field is likely to be a key parameter in the production of the Comptonized hard X-ray emission.

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“…SPI's instrumental background turned out to be a big challenge, the hope for efficient rejection through the pulse-shape discrimination system was not fulfilled [44]. As a result, sensitivity remains below simulated performances.…”

Section: Some Hard Lessonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concluding Remarks

Diehl¹

2010

Proceedings of the Extreme Sky: Sampling the Universe Above 10 keV — PoS(extremesky2009)

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SPI/INTEGRAL in-flight performance

Cited by 160 publications

References 15 publications

REVEALING TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA PHYSICS WITH COSMIC RATES AND NUCLEAR GAMMA RAYS

REVEALING TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA PHYSICS WITH COSMIC RATES AND NUCLEAR GAMMA RAYS

Variability and Spectral Modeling of the Hard X-Ray Emission of Gx 339–4 in a Bright Low/Hard State

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