SPI instrumental background characteristics

Free access article

Issue		A&A Volume 411, Number 1, November III 2003 Special letters issue on: first science with integral


Page(s)		L107 - L112
Section		Letters
DOI		http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20031156

A&A 411, L107-L112 (2003)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20031156

Letter

SPI instrumental background characteristics

P. Jean¹, G. Vedrenne¹, J. P. Roques¹, V. Schönfelder², B. J. Teegarden³, A. von Kienlin², J. Knödlseder¹, C. Wunderer², G. K. Skinner¹, G. Weidenspointner^{1, 3, 4}, D. Attié⁵, S. Boggs⁶, P. Caraveo⁷, B. Cordier⁵, R. Diehl², M. Gros⁵, P. Leleux⁸, G. G. Lichti², E. Kalemci⁶, J. Kiener⁹, V. Lonjou¹, P. Mandrou¹, Ph. Paul¹, S. Schanne⁵ and P. von Ballmoos¹

¹ Centre d'Étude Spatiale des Rayonnements, CNRS/UPS, BP 4346, 31028 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
² Max Planck Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik, Postfach 1312, 85741 Garching, Germany
³ Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
⁴ Universities Space Research Association, 7501 Forbes Blvd. Seabrook, MD 20706-2253
⁵ DSM/DAPNIA/Service dAstrophysique, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
⁶ Space Science Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
⁷ Istituto di Fisica Cosmica del CNR "G. Occhialini", via Bassini 15, 20133 Milan, Italy
⁸ Institut de Physique Nucleaire, Universite catholique de Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
⁹ Centre de Spectrometrie Nucleaire et de Spectrometrie de Masse, IN2P3-CNRS, 91405 Orsay Campus, France

(Received 15 July 2003 / Accepted 30 July 2003)

Abstract
In its space environment the INTEGRAL observatory is subject to an intense irradiation by energetic cosmic-ray particles that leads, via nuclear interactions with the telescope and spacecraft materials, to an important background of false events. In this paper we present the characteristics of the instrumental background that is observed in the spectrometer SPI (SPectrometer of INTEGRAL). We explain the tuning that has been performed on the parameters of the anticoincidence system in order to optimise the telescope sensitivity over the full energy range. Temporal variations of the instrumental background are discussed and methods are proposed that allow for their modelling in first order.

Key words: gamma-ray: instruments

Offprint request: P. Jean, jean@cesr.fr

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