The primary activities supported will be the enhancement of the connectivity and control systems of Boyden. Two recent advances make this goal plausible. These detectors will provide true pixelized images of the tracks of charged particle passing through the detector's drift volume. ACT will provide a major improvement in capability for nuclear line and continuum observations in the 500 keV - 30 MeV region. Several alternative detector concepts for this mission have been proposed.
None are ready for implementation.
This development may overcome the serious technological challenges foreseen for the ACT mission. Quite advanced capabilities of the GEM detectors have been demonstrated in the laboratory. Our team, which includes experts on detector development and the development of instruments for use in space, herein proposes a short, modest cost program that will demonstrate the achievement of our goal with the fabrication, testing and evaluation of a series of detectors, the last of which will be of the quality typically required for a space application. Hard X-ray polarization measurements of the flash phase of the GRB will allow us to probe the geometry of the emission at earlier times. We have developed a modular design for a Compton scatter polarimeter that is capable of measuring linear polarization in the 50-300 keV energy range.