Results from the HEPD-01 detector on board the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES)

Abstract

CSES (China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite) is a sophisticated multi-channel space observatory to study the Earth and its surrounding layers. It was launched on February 2nd, 2018, on a Sun-Synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 km. The High Energy Particle Detector (HEPD-01) is one of the main contributions of the CSES-Limadou collaboration to the mission with the goal of measuring 3-100 MeV electrons and 30-300 MeV protons, also extending to heavier nuclei. The instrument is quite compact (40.36 cm x 53.00 cm x 38.15 cm) and it is composed of a tracking system, a trigger made by a segmented layer of plastic scintillator, a calorimeter made by a tower of plastic scintillators and an array of LYSO cubes and a veto system. With its large field of view (±60°) it is capable to collect sufficient statistics to provide new and competitive measurements concerning a quite rich scientific program: the study of the radiation present in the ionospheric-magnetospheric environment, searching for transient phenomena correlated to seismic events, monitoring the solar activity, the flux of the low energy cosmic rays and studying the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). In this paper we provide a synthetic description of the detector and of the main scientific results obtained on the measurement of the properties of low energy charged particles.