Experimental Considerations for Nuclear γ-Ray Astronomy

In this chapter considerations pertinent to the design of experiments will be discussed. Instrument backgrounds present a basic limitation to the flux sensitivity for any detector scheme; however, the a priori determination of the background for a nuclear γ-ray line experiment is an extremely foreboding task. Therefore we present some of the important basic limitations affecting the background in an experiment, as well as some important results obtained in actual practice by various groups. Improvements can only be made with a knowledge of these basic limitations. A short discussion is also given of the flux sensitivity and energy and spatial resolution requirements for the field. Finally, the most significant detection methods that are in use now, or are being developed for forthcoming experiments, will be reviewed. A recent review by Peterson (1975) gives a discussion of some experimental techniques used in X-ray astronomy and complements some of the discussion here.