DUAL Gamma-Ray Mission

TL;DR

The DUAL gamma-ray mission aims to significantly enhance sensitivity in gamma-ray astronomy through a dual-spacecraft system, enabling comprehensive sky surveys and detailed observations of supernovae.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dual-spacecraft design combining a wide-field Compton telescope with a Laue-Lens telescope for improved gamma-ray detection.

Findings

Achieves at least tenfold sensitivity improvement over current technologies.

Enables simultaneous all-sky gamma-ray observations and targeted supernova studies.

Proposes a feasible formation-flying spacecraft configuration.

Abstract

Gamma-ray astronomy presents an extraordinary scientific potential for the study of the most powerful sources and the most violent events in the Universe. In order to take full advantage of this potential, the next generation of instrumentation for this domain will have to achieve an improvement in sensitivity over present technologies of at least an order of magnitude. The DUAL mission concept takes up this challenge in two complementary ways: a very long observation of the entire sky, combined with a large collection area for simultaneous observations of Type Ia SNe. While the Wide-Field Compton Telescope (WCT) accumulates data from the full gamma-ray sky (0.1-10 MeV) over the entire mission lifetime, the Laue-Lens Telescope (LLT) focuses on 56Co emission from SNe Ia (0.8-0.9 MeV), collecting gamma-rays from its large area crystal lens onto the WCT. Two separated spacecraft flying in formation will maintain the DUAL payloads at the lens' focal distance.