RAMSEES: A Model of the Atmospheric Radiative Environment Based on Geant4 Simulation of Extensive Air Shower

Abstract

The device downscaling of electronic components has given rise to the need to consider specific failures in onboard airplane electronics. Single Event Effects (SEE) are a kind of failures that occur due to radiation in the atmosphere. For the purpose of ensuring onboard electronic reliability, there is a clear need for new tools to predict the SEE rate, at both avionic altitudes and at ground level. In this work, we develop a new tool: RAMSEES (Radiation Atmospheric Model for SEE Simulation), which simulates the atmospheric radiative environment induced by cosmic rays. This multiscale and multi-physics phenomenon is simulated using the Geant4 toolkit, allowing the creation of a database to characterize the radiation environment in the atmosphere as a function of altitude. We show the need to simulate very high-energy particles such as 100 TeV space protons, because they are the main contributor of radiation at avionic altitudes as well as at ground level. Our approach shows a good agreement with the experimental data, the standards, and other models, and it also points out some discrepancies, especially below 18 km of altitude. RAMSEES can be the basis of the estimation of the SEE rate from ground level to the stratosphere, at any given position and time.