First demonstration of gamma-ray imaging using balloon-borne emulsion telescope

TL;DR

This paper reports the first successful gamma-ray imaging using a balloon-borne emulsion telescope, demonstrating high angular resolution and effective detection of gamma rays in the 100-300 MeV range.

Contribution

It presents the first demonstration of gamma-ray imaging with a balloon-borne emulsion telescope, validating the feasibility of larger area experiments with high imaging performance.

Findings

Detected gamma-ray signals from a calibration source with high significance

Achieved gamma-ray imaging consistent with expected angular resolution

Proved the feasibility of larger area balloon-borne emulsion telescopes

Abstract

We promote the precise gamma-ray observation project Gamma-Ray Astro-Imager with Nuclear Emulsion (GRAINE), which uses balloon-borne emulsion gamma-ray telescopes. The emulsion telescope realizes observations with high angular resolution, polarization sensitivity, and large aperture area in the 0.01--100 GeV energy region. Herein, we report the data analysis of emulsion tracks and the first demonstration of gamma-ray imaging via an emulsion telescope by using the flight data from the balloon experiment performed in 2015 (GRAINE 2015). The emulsion films were scanned by the latest read-out system for a total area of 41 m$^2$ in three months, and then the gamma-ray event selection was automatically processed. Millions of electron-pair events are accumulated in the balloon-borne emulsion telescope. The emulsion telescope detected signals from a calibration source (gamma rays from the interaction of cosmic rays with an aluminum plate) with a high significance during the balloon observation and created a gamma-ray image consistent with the source size and the expected angular resolution in the energy range of 100--300 MeV. The flight performance obtained in the GRAINE 2015 experiment proves that balloon-borne emulsion telescope experiments with larger area are feasible while maintaining expected imaging performance.