Simulation study of performance of the Very Large Area gamma-ray Space Telescope

TL;DR

This paper presents a simulation study demonstrating that the proposed VLAST gamma-ray telescope can achieve significantly larger effective area and superior resolution compared to existing instruments, promising major advances in gamma-ray astronomy.

Contribution

The study introduces a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of the VLAST detector, validating its design feasibility and performance improvements over current gamma-ray telescopes.

Findings

Acceptance > 10 m^2 sr, four times larger than Fermi-LAT

Energy resolution better than 2% at 10 GeV

Angular resolution better than 0.2 degrees at 10 GeV

Abstract

The Very Large Area gamma-ray Space Telescope (VLAST) is a mission concept proposed to detect gamma-ray photons through both the Compton scattering and electron-positron pair production mechanisms, enabling the detection of photons with energies ranging from MeV to TeV. This project aims to conduct a comprehensive survey of the gamma-ray sky from a low Earth orbit using an anti-coincidence detector, a tracker detector that also serves as a low energy calorimeter, and a high energy imaging calorimeter. We developed a Monte Carlo simulation application of the detector with the GEANT4 toolkit to evaluate the instrument performance including the effective area, angular resolution and energy resolution, as well as explored specific optimizations of the detector configuration. Our simulation-based analysis indicates that the VLAST's current design is physically feasible, with an acceptance larger than 10~$\rm m^2\ sr$ which is four times larger than Fermi-LAT, an energy resolution better than 2\% at 10~GeV, and an angular resolution better than 0.2 degrees at 10~GeV. The VLAST project is expected to make significant contribution to the field of gamma-ray astronomy and to enhance our understanding of the cosmos.