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The Phoswich Detection System PDS on board the SAX satellite

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Il Nuovo Cimento C

Summary

The Phoswich Detection System (PDS) is one of the four narrow-field instruments on board the SAX satellite. The experiment will be dedicated to temporal and spectral studies of celestial X-ray sources in the 15÷300 keV energy band. The PDS detector is composed of 4 actively shielded NaI(TI)/CsI(Na) phoswich scintillators and has a field of view of 1.4o (FWHM). The total geometric area is 800 cm2. The instrument is designed with the goal to achieve an energy resolution better than 17% at 60 keV and a 3σ flux sensitivity for an observation time of 105 s of about 1×10−6 photons cm−2 s−1 in an energy band 40 keV wide centred at 100 keV. This sensitivity corresponds to about 2 milliCrab flux units in the same energy range. The expected 3σ sensitivity of the PDS to cyclotron emission lines is about 3×10−5 photons cm−2 s−1 at 60 keV in 105 s. The CsI(Na) lateral shields of the PDS will also be used as a gamma-ray burst monitor. In this report we give a detailed description of the experiment design and we discuss the expected in-flight performances of the PDS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto Tecnologie e Studio Radiazioni Extraterrestri Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Bologna, Italia

    F. Frontera, D. Dal Fiume, M. Pamini, J. M. Poulsen, C. M. Zhang, A. Basili, T. Franceschini, G. Landini & S. Silvestri

  2. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italia

    F. Frontera

  3. Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale, Consiglio Nazionale Ricerche, Frascati, Italia

    E. Costa, A. Emanuele & A. Rubini

Authors
  1. F. Frontera
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  2. D. Dal Fiume
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  3. M. Pamini
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  4. J. M. Poulsen
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  5. C. M. Zhang
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  6. A. Basili
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  7. T. Franceschini
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  8. G. Landini
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  9. S. Silvestri
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  10. E. Costa
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  11. A. Emanuele
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  12. A. Rubini
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Frontera, F., Dal Fiume, D., Pamini, M. et al. The Phoswich Detection System PDS on board the SAX satellite. Il Nuovo Cimento C 15, 867–878 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02507861

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02507861

PACS 98.70.Qy

PACS 95.55

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