Abstract
We describe the development of a future gamma-ray/cosmic-ray mission called the Advanced Particle-astrophysics Telescope (APT). The instrument will combine a pair tracker and Compton telescope in a single monolithic design. By using scintillating fibers for the tracker and wavelength-shifting fibers to readout CsI detectors, the instrument will achieve an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity compared with Fermi but with fewer readout channels, and lower complexity. By incorporating multiple Compton imaging over a very large effective area, the instrument will also achieve orders of magnitude improvement in MeV sensitivity compared with other proposed instruments. The mission would have a broad impact on astroparticle physics, but the primary science drivers for the mission include: (1) probing WIMP dark matter across the entire natural mass range and annihilation cross section for a thermal WIMP, (2) providing a nearly all-sky instantaneous FoV, with prompt sub-degree localization and polarization measurements for gamma-ray transients such as neutron-star mergers and (3) making measurements of rare utraheavy cosmic ray nuclei to distinguish between n-star merger and SNae r-process synthesis of the heavy elements. We will describe ongoing work including a series of accelerator beam tests, a piggy-back Antactic flight (APTlite) and the recently funded long-duration balloon mission: the Antarctic Demonstrator for APT (ADAPT).
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 655 |
| Journal | Proceedings of Science |
| Volume | 395 |
| State | Published - Mar 18 2022 |
| Event | 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference, ICRC 2021 - Virtual, Berlin, Germany Duration: Jul 12 2021 → Jul 23 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:constraints for a typical GRB fluence [2]. With an estimated burst rate of 120 GBM bursts per year with fluence >2 MeV/cm2, scaling by the relative FoV of ADAPT and GBM, we expect about 3 GRBs to be detected in a 36-day flight with < 1.5◦ localization accuracy, allowing potential for prompt multi-messinger observations and discovery with our small pathfinder ADAPT instrument. Acknowledgements This work was made possible through support by NASA grant 80NSSC19K0625 and NASA APRA award 20-APRA20-0148. The collaboration also acknowledges generous ongoing support from the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences and the Peggy and Steve Fossett Foundation.
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