Particle Beam Tests of the Calorimetric Electron Telescope

The Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) is a new mission addressing outstanding astrophysics questions including the nature of dark matter, the sources of high-energy particles and photons, and the details of particle acceleration and transport in the galaxy by measuring the high-energy spectra of electrons, nuclei, and gamma-rays. It will launch on HTV-5 (H-II Transfer Vehicle 5) in 2014 for installation on the Japanese Experiment Module–Exposed Facility (JEM-EF) of the International Space Station. The CALET collaboration is led by JAXA and includes researchers from Japan, the U.S. and Italy. The CALET Main Telescope uses a plastic scintillator charge detector followed by a 30 radiation-length (X0) deep particle calorimeter divided into a 3 X0 imaging calorimeter, with scintillating optical fibers interleaved with thin tungsten sheets, and a 27 X0 fully-active total-absorption calorimeter made of lead tungstate scintillators. CALET prototypes were tested at the CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) in 2010 and 2011 using electrons to 290 GeV and protons to 350 GeV. In 2012 the CALET BEAM-TEST Model (BTM) was tested at the SPS with electrons to 300 GeV and protons to 400 GeV. The flight charge detectors were tested in 2013 at the SPS in heavy-ion beams from fragmented lead at 13 and 30 GeV/nucleon. Here, the CALET beam tests and the results of those tests will be presented and implications for the mission measurement goals will be discussed.