Performance of a compact multi-crystal high-purity germanium detector array for measuring coincident gamma-ray emissions.

The Multi-sensor Airborne Radiation Survey (MARS) detector is a 14-crystal array of high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors housed in a single cryostat. The array was used to measure the astrophysical S -factor for the 14 N(p,γ) 15 O ⁎ reaction for several transition energies at an effective center-of-mass energy of 163 keV. Owing to the granular nature of the MARS detector, the effect of gamma-ray summing was greatly reduced in comparison to past experiments which utilized large, single-crystal detectors. The new S -factor values agree within their uncertainties with the past measurements. Details of the analysis and detector performance are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]