A continuing research program in medium- and high-energy gamma-ray astronomy focuses on increasing our knowledge of the nature and origin of Galactic and extragalactic gamma rays. The work includes instrument development, data analysis, and theoretical studies. Scientific research is in the fields of Galactic diffuse radiation, pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, solar flares, molecular clouds, normal galaxies, active galactic nuclei, and extragalactic diffuse radiation. The results will help us to understand high-energy processes in the Sun, in celestial objects, in the interstellar medium, and in extragalactic space.

The efforts currently concentrate on two projects. The first is participation in the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope mission, involving an international collaboration of particle physicists and astrophysicists. We are involved with many aspects of the Fermi mission, including simulations, development of data analysis techniques, and science analysis. The second is the development of new instrumentation for gamma-ray astrophysics. This work has three thrusts: 1) the Advanced Energetic Pair Telescope (AdEPT) for gamma-ray polarimetery in the 2-200 MeV range. AdEPT is a large volume gaseous time projection chamber with high spatial resolution two-dimensional readout. It is optimized to measure gamma rays interacting via pair production at the highest achievable angular accuracy, limited by the undetectable nuclear recoil, 2) AMEGO, a combination Compton scattering and pair conversion instrument utilizing silicon strips. This instrument is similar in construction to the Fermi Large Area Telescope, but optimized for the 200 keV - 10 GeV energy range, and 3) BurstCube, a CubeSat designed to detect gamma-ray transients such as short gamma-ray bursts in the 10 keV to 1 MeV energy range using Cesium Iodide scintillators coupled to Silicon Photomultipliers.
Location:
Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
Field of Science:Astrophysics
Advisors:
Stanley D. Hunter
stanley.d.hunter@nasa.gov
301-286-7280
Tonia Venters
tonia.m.venters@nasa.gov
301-614-5546
Elizabeth Hays
Elizabeth.A.Hays@nasa.gov
301-286-0345
Judith Racusin
Judith.Racusin@nasa.gov
301-286-4664
Julie McEnery
Julie.E.McEnery@nasa.gov
301-286-1632
Jeremy S. Perkins
jeremy.s.perkins@nasa.gov
301.286.3463
Regina Caputo
regina.caputo@nasa.gov
301-286-0072
Carolyn Kierans
carolyn.a.kierans@nasa.gov
(301) 286-7628

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