Calibration Analyses and Efficiency Studies for the Anti Coincidence Detector on the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope
The Anti Coincidence Detector (ACD) on the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope provides charged particle rejection for the Large Area Telescope (LAT). We use two calibrations used by the ACD to conduct three studies on the performance of the ACD. We examine the trending of the calibrations to search for damage and find a timescale over which the calibrations can be considered reliable. We also calculated the number of photoelectrons counted by a PMT on the ACD from a normal proton. Third, we calculated the veto efficiencies of the ACD for two different veto settings. The trends of the calibrations exhibited no signs of damage, and indicated timescales of reliability for the calibrations of one to two years. The number of photoelectrons calculated ranged from 5 to 25. Large errors in the effect of the energy spectrum of the charged particles caused these values to have very large errors of around 60 percent. Finally, the veto efficiencies were found to be very high at both veto values, both for charged particles and for the lower energy backsplash spectrum. The Anti Coincidence Detector (ACD) on the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope is a detector system built around the silicon strip tracker on the Large Area Telescope (LAT). The purpose of the ACD is to provide charged particle rejection for the LAT. To do this, the ACD must be calibrated correctly in flight, and must be able to efficiently veto charged particle events while minimizing false vetoes due to 'backsplash' from photons in the calorimeter. There are eleven calibrations used by the ACD. In this paper, we discuss the use of two of these calibrations to preform three studies on the performance of the ACD. The first study examines trending of the calibrations to check for possible hardware degradation. The second study uses the calibrations to explore the efficiency of an on-board hardware veto. The third study uses the calibrations to calculate the number of photoelectrons seen by each PMT when a minimum ionizing particle is detected, which is a useful value for performing simulations.
- Research Organization:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515
- OSTI ID:
- 1017221
- Report Number(s):
- SLAC-TN-11-008; TRN: US1103333
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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