In-flight calibrations of IBIS/PICsIT

PICsIT (Pixellated Imaging CaeSium Iodide Telescope) is the high energy detector of the IBIS telescope on- board the INTEGRAL satellite. It consists of 4096 independent detection units, similar to 0.7 cm(2) in cross-section, operating in the energy range between 175 keV and 10 MeV. The intrinsically low signal to noise ratio in the gamma-ray astronomy domain implies very long observations, lasting 10(5) - 10(6) s. Moreover, the image formation principle on which PICsIT works is that of coded imaging in which the entire detection plane contributes to each decoded sky pixel. For these two main reasons, the monitoring, and possible correction, of the spatial and temporal non-uniformity of pixel performances, expecially in terms of gain and energy resolution, is of paramount importance. The IBIS on- board Na-22 calibration source allows the calibration of each pixel at an accuracy of < 0.5% by integrating the data from a few revolutions at constant temperature. The two calibration lines, at 511 and 1275 keV, allow also the measurement and monitoring of the PICsIT energy resolution which proves to be very stable at &SIM; 19% and &SIM; 9% (FWHM) respectively, and consistent with the values expected analytical predictions checked against pre-launch tests.