Cosmic rays tracks in the PICsIT instrument onboard the INTEGRAL satellite

The PICsIT (PIxelated CsI Telescope) instrument is the high energy plane of the IBIS imager onboard the INTEGRAL satellite, launched on October 2002 and currently fully operative. PICsIT consists of a 64×64 detectors array, each composed of a CsI(Tl) scintillating crystal with p-i-n photodiode readout. Since its first in-orbit activation, several count rate spikes have been detected. The tracks in the detector corresponding to those spikes clearly indicate that their origin is the interaction of cosmic rays with the detector or the satellite structure. Several extended elliptical tracks have been detected, indicating the presence of electromagnetic and hadronic showers initiated by primary cosmic rays interacting with the satellite structure. The tracks morphology and statistics is presented. There is strong evidence that tracks events are due to phosphorescence states excited in the CsI(Tl) crystals by a high energy deposit. Since events due to cosmic rays tracks account for a significant fraction of the instrument background, their rejection is important to improve the instrument sensitivity. Tracks rejection is especially important in those instruments, based on large quantities of alkali halide scintillators, designed to trigger on count rate increases, such as gamma-ray burst monitors. In the PICsIT detector operated in photon-by-photon mode, tracks events rejection can be easily accomplished thanks to the tracks peculiar geometrical and timing characteristics.