Hard X-Ray Detector (HXD) on Board Suzaku
Isobe, Naoki; Yamaoka, Kazutaka; Fukazawa, Yasushi; Hong, Soojing; Kokubun, Motohide; Makishima, Kazuo; Miyawaki, Ryohei; Murakami, Toshio; Nakazawa, Kazuhiro; Ohno, Masanori; Sato, Goro; Takahashi, Tadayuki; Terada, Yukikatsu; Takahashi, Hiromitsu; Uchiyama, Yasunobu; Kawaharada, Madoka; Kitaguchi, Takao; Kawano, Naomi; Mitani, Takefumi; Kubota, Aya; Sugiho, Masahiko; Tanaka, Takaaki; Itoh, Takeshi; Yonetoku, Daisuke; Kataoka, Jun; Madejski, Greg; Mizuno, Tsunefumi; Ota, Naomi; Tamura, Takayuki; Watanabe, Shin; Tashiro, Makoto; Kamae, Tuneyoshi; Takahashi, Isao; Murashima, Mio; Suzuki, Masaya; Abe, Keiichi; Yanagida, Takayuki; Tamura, Ken-Ichi; Endo, Yasuhiko; Hirakuri, Shinya; Kishishita, Tetsuichi; Takeda, Shin'ichiro; Kuroda, Yoshikatsu; Masukawa, Kazunori; Kotoku, Jun'ichi; Endo, Manabu; Mori, Kunishiro; Ozawa, Hideki; Okada, Yuu; Iyomoto, Naoko; Nomachi, Masaharu; Ezoe, Yuuichiro; Hamaya, Masahito; Horii, Michihiro; Inoue, Hokuto; Kasama, Daisuke; Kato, Hiroshi; Kawashima, Kengo; Kawasoe, Satoshi; Kobayashi, Yoshihito; Kouda, Manabu; Matsumoto, Yukari; Mori, Masanori; Niko, Hisako; Oonuki, Kousuke; Shinoda, Shingo; Taguchi, Koji; Tanihata, Chiharu; Tominaga, Shin'ya
Japan, United States
Abstract
The Hard X-ray Detector (HXD) on board Suzaku covers a wide energy range from 10keV to 600keV by the combination of silicon PIN diodes and GSO scintillators. The HXD is designed to achieve an extremely low in-orbit background based on a combination of new techniques, including the concept of a well-type active shield counter. With an effective area of 142cm² at 20keV and 273cm² at 150keV, the background level at sea level reached ∼1×10-5cts s-1 cm-2 keV-1 at 30keV for the PIN diodes, and ∼2×10-5cts s-1 cm-2 keV-1 at 100keV, and ∼7×10-6cts s-1 cm-2 keV-1 at 200keV for the phoswich counter. Tight active shielding of the HXD results in a large array of guard counters surrounding the main detector parts. These anti-coincidence counters, made of ∼4cm thick BGO crystals, have a large effective area for sub-MeV to MeV γ-rays. They work as an excellent γ-ray burst monitor with limited angular resolution (∼5°). The on-board signal-processing system and the data transmitted to the ground are also described.