Performance characteristics of high resolution Compton telescopes

To build upon the goals of the upcoming INTEGRAL mission, the next generati on soft gamma -ray (0.2-20 MeV) observatory will require improved sensitivi ty to continuum and nuclear line emission, while maintaining high spectrosc opy to resolve Doppler shifts and broadenings. We present the simulated per formance of two germanium Compton telescope (GCT) designs in high Earth orb it conditions. The goal of this work is both to determine realistic sensiti vities for the GCTs, as well as determine the geometry which best takes adv antage of the spectral, imaging, and stopping power of germanium detectors. We find that a novel Compact design optimizes the sensitivity to both nucl ear line and continuum sources, with an effective factor of 2.0 improvement over a Classical design. The Compact GCT would provide an order of magnitu de improvement in sensitivity over INTEGRAL.