Simulation study of the performance of the Very Large Area gamma-ray Space Telescope  

作　　者：Xu Pan Wei Jiang Chuan Yue Shi-Jun Lei Yu-Xin Cui Qiang Yuan 

机构地区：[1]Key Laboratory of Dark Matter and Space Astronomy,Purple Mountain Observatory,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Nanjing 210023,China [2]School of Astronomy and Space Science,University of Science and Technology of China,Hefei 230026,China

出　　处：《Nuclear Science and Techniques》2024年第9期1-17,共17页核技术（英文）

基　　金：supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China(No.2021YFA0718404);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.12220101003,12173098,U2031149);the Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research of Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS)(No.YSBR-061);the Scientific Instrument Developing Project of CAS(No.GJJSTD20210009);the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS,and the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by the China Association for Science and Technology(No.YESS20220197).

摘　　要：The Very Large Area gamma-ray Space Telescope(VLAST)is a mission concept proposed to detect gamma-ray photons through both Compton scattering and electron–positron pair production mechanisms,thus enabling the detection of photons with energies ranging from MeV to TeV.This project aims to conduct a comprehensive survey of the gamma-ray sky from a low-Earth orbit using an anti-coincidence detector,a tracker detector that also serves as a low-energy calorimeter,and a high-energy imaging calorimeter.We developed a Monte Carlo simulation application of the detector using the GEANT4 toolkit to evaluate the instrument performance,including the effective area,angular resolution,and energy resolution,and explored specific optimizations of the detector configuration.Our simulation-based analysis indicates that the current design of the VLAST is physically feasible,with an acceptance above 10 m^(2)sr which is four times larger than that of the Fermi-LAT,an energy resolution better than 2%at 10 GeV,and an angular resolution better than 0.2◦at 10 GeV.The VLAST project promises to make significant contributions to the field of gamma-ray astronomy and enhance our understanding of the cosmos.

关 键 词：Space astronomy Gamma-ray telescope Calorimeter Monte Carlo simulation 

分 类 号：P17[天文地球—天文学]