Abstract
Abstract A geometrical method developed for a particle detector can be extended for application to the determination of the pitch angle sampling capability of the particle telescope of any orientation and for the parent satellite of any orbital orientation. A unit vector tangent to a dipole geomagnetic field line has been calculated from the dipole magnetic field equations in the geomagnetic coordinate system. Rotation matrices have been used, step-by-step, to align the geomagnetic coordinate frame with the detector coordinate frame. The detector selected in this work has its axis tilted with the local zenith direction. The component of the unit vector in the detector coordinate system is found at an observation point characterized by longitude, latitude, and the geocentric radial distance. Pitch angles are measured with respect to the guiding field direction. The pitch angle sampling factor is used in the calculation of detector response functions to particles of different pitch angles. The sampling efficiency functions are useful to make an absolute comparison of magnetospheric particle fluxes measured by particle telescopes under different solar conditions pertaining to different epochs.
Highlights
The measurement of anisotropic flux of energetic particles and their pitch angles is indispensable in the study of planetary magnetospheres
If we know the pitch angle distribution function of particles mirroring at other latitudes, we can check with the applicability of the method with the instrument response function calculated at that latitude
Conclusion the treatment given here is for the particle telescope used in the ONR-602 experiment, this geometrical method can be extended for application for the determination of the pitch angle sampling capability of a particle telescope of any orientation and for the parent satellite of any orbital inclination
Summary
The measurement of anisotropic flux of energetic particles and their pitch angles is indispensable in the study of planetary magnetospheres. The sensitive base of the detector may be perpendicular to the zenith direction or inclined at some angle from the zenith direction at the observation point Depending on their geometry and the orientation, particle telescopes onboard have different capabilities of sampling particles of different pitch angles at different latitudes. This article describes how to know the range of the pitch angles detected by the telescopes at any observation point in the orbit. It shows how the relative response function for a given pitch angle α is defined. In the exploration of planetary magnetosphere, knowledge of detector response function is required to calculate the particle flux characterized by anisotropic pitch angle distribution. The above formulations show that t is independent of r
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