Modeling charge transfer inefficiency in the Chandra Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer

Abstract

The front-illuminated (FI) CCDs in the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) on the Chandra X-ray Observatory ( Chandra) were damaged in the extreme environment of the Earth's radiation belts, causing charge traps that result in enhanced charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) during parallel readout. This causes row-dependent gain, event grade ‘morphing’ (spatial redistribution of charge) and energy resolution degradation. The ACIS back-illuminated (BI) CCDs also exhibit pronounced CTI due to their manufacturing. It is mild enough that position-dependent energy resolution is not seen, but it is present in both parallel and serial registers. This CTI also changes the gain and event grades, in a spatially complicated way as parallel and serial CTI interact. Given these realities, we have developed and tuned a phenomenological model of CTI for both FI and BI CCDs and incorporated it into our Monte Carlo simulations of the ACIS CCDs. It models charge loss and the spatial redistribution of charge (trailing), thus reproducing the spatially dependent gain and grade distribution seen in all ACIS CCDs and the row-dependent energy resolution seen in the FI devices. Here we explore the evidence for CTI, compare our simulations to data, and present a technique for CTI correction based on forward modeling.