AGILE, a satellite for high energy c-ray astrophysics: prospects for the Mini-Calorimeter E. Celesti a, * , A. Bulgarelli a , G. di Cocco a , M. Galli b , F. Gianotti a , C. Labanti a , M. Marisaldi a,c , A. Mauri a , E. Rossi a , A. Traci a , M. Trifoglio a , M. Tavani d , A. Argan e a IASF/CNR Sezione di Bologna, Via Gobetti 101, Bologna 40129, Italy b ENEA, Via Don Fiammelli 2, Bologna 40129, Italy c Universit a di Bologna – Dipartimento di Fisica, viale C. Berti Pichat 6/2, Bologna 40127, Italy d IASF/CNR Sezione di Roma, Via del fosso del Cavaliere 100, Roma, Italy e IASF/CNR Sezione di Milano, Via Bassini 15, Milano 20133, Italy Abstract Astrorivelatore Gamma ad Immagini LEggero (AGILE) is an Italian Space Agency (ASI) small space mission for high energy astrophysics in the c-ray energy range 30 MeV–50 GeV and in the X-ray band 10–40 keV. AGILE is composed of three scientific detectors: a Tungsten–Silicon Tracker, a CsI Mini-Calorimeter and a silicon based X-ray detector (Super-Agile), moreover, an anticoincidence system carries out background rejection. The satelliteÕs payload will have good imaging performances (with angular resolution of a few arc-minutes in the c-ray band), good timing resolution and a large field of view (about 1/5 of the sky). AGILE detection principle is based on the pair production process, that arises from the interaction between high energy photons and the tungsten layers of the Silicon Tracker. The Silicon Tracker is designed to determine the direction of the incoming radiation, while the Mini-Calorimeter evaluates the energy of the interacting photons. The Mini-Calorimeter can also work as a stand-alone c-ray detector in the energy range 250 keV–250 MeV, with no imaging capabilities, for the detection of transients and c-ray burst events (in cooperation with Super-Agile) and for the evaluation of c-ray background fluctuations. In this paper a description of the Mini-Calorimeter is done. Ó 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 95.55.Ka; 98.70.Rz Keywords: Instrumentation: detectors, telescopes; c-rays: observations; c-rays: bursts 1. Introduction ‘‘Astrorivelatore Gamma ad Immagini LEgg- ero’’ (AGILE), (Tavani et al., 2001; Mereghetti et al., 2001) is a small Italian Space Agency (ASI) * Corresponding author. E-mail address: celesti@bo.iasf.cnr.it (E. Celesti). 1387-6473/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.newar.2003.11.037 New Astronomy Reviews 48 (2004) 315–320 www.elsevier.com/locate/newastrev