DmpIRFs and DmpST: DAMPE instrument response functions and science tools for gamma-ray data analysis

• Published in: Research in astronomy and astrophysics Vol. 19; no. 9; pp. 132 - 141
• Main Authors: Duan, Kai-Kai, Jiang, Wei, Liang, Yun-Feng, Shen, Zhao-Qiang, Xu, Zun-Lei, Fan, Yi-Zhong, Gargano, Fabio, Garrappa, Simone, Guo, Dong-Ya, Lei, Shi-Jun, Li, Xiang, Mazziotta, Mario Nicola, Salinas, Maria Fernanda Munoz, Su, Meng, Vagelli, Valerio, Yuan, Qiang, Yue, Chuan, Zimmer, Stephan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing National Astronomical Observatories, CAS and IOP Publishing Ltd 01.09.2019; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: Angular resolution; Astrophysics; Computer simulation; Dark matter; Data analysis; Gamma rays; gamma rays: general; instrumentation: detectors; Maximum likelihood method; methods: statistical; Point spread functions; Response functions; Software; Statistical analysis
• ISSN: 1674-4527
• DOI: 10.1088/1674-4527/19/9/132

Observing GeV gamma-rays is an important goal of the DArkMatter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) for indirect dark matter searching and high energy astrophysics. In this work, we present a set of accurate instrument response functions for DAMPE (DmpIRFs) including the effective area, point-spread function and energy dispersion, which are crucial for gamma-ray data analysis based on statistics from simulation data. A dedicated software named DmpST is developed to facilitate the scientific analyses of DAMPE gamma-ray data. Considering the limited number of photons and angular resolution of DAMPE, the maximum likelihood method is adopted in DmpST to better disentangle different source components. The basic mathematics and framework regarding this software are also introduced in this paper.