Inflight calibration and performance of the hard X-ray detector (HXD) onboard Suzaku

The hard X-ray detector (HXD) onboard Suzaku covers an energy range of 8-700 keV, and thus in combination with the CCD camera (XIS) gives us an opportunity of wide-band X-ray observations of celestial sources with a good sensitivity over the 0.3-700 keV range. All of 64 Si-PIN photo diodes, 16 GSO/BGO phoswich scintillators, and 20 anti-coincidence BGO scintillators in the HXD are working well since the Suzaku launch on July 2005. The rejection of background events is confirmed to be as effective as expected, and accordingly the HXD achieved the lowest background level of the previously or currently operational missions sensitive in the comparable energy range. The energy and angular responses and timing have been continuously calibrated by the data from the Crab nebula, X-ray pulsars, and other sources, and at present several % accuracy is obtained. Even though the HXD does not perform simultaneous background observations, it detected weak sources with a flux as low as ∼0.5 mCrab; stars, X-ray binaries, supernova remnants, active galactic nuclei, and galaxy clusters. Extensive studies of background subtraction enables us to study weaker sources.