Detection of Crab radiation with a meteorological balloon borne phoswich detector

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the detection of Crab pulsar X-ray radiation using a balloon-borne phoswich detector, including design, background modeling, and detection limits at various altitudes.

Contribution

It introduces a lightweight balloon-borne detector setup for X-ray astronomy and models background radiation to determine detection capabilities.

Findings

Successful detection of Crab pulsar X-ray radiation

Background radiation modeling at different altitudes

Calculated minimum detection limits for extrasolar sources

Abstract

We use existing light weight balloon facility of Indian Centre for Space Physics to detect the X-ray radiation from Crab pulsar with a phoswich detector. We present the design considerations and characterization of the detector used for this purpose. We model the background radiation in the detector environment at various altitudes and use this in spectral analysis. The background radiation level and limitations on the detector allowed us to calculate minimum detection limit for extrasolar radiation sources with our set up.