High Energy Particle Detector Research Articles

The electronics of the High-Energy Particle Detector on board the CSES-01 satellite

CSES (China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite) is a Chinese–Italian scientific space mission dedicated to monitor the variations of the main parameters of the topside ionosphere (electric and magnetic fields, plasma parameters, charge particle fluxes) caused by either natural emitters – especially earthquakes – or artificial ones.The CSES satellite was successfully launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located in the west of Inner Mongolia on February 2nd, 2018, and it is now orbiting under nominal conditions. The expected mission lifetime amounts to 5 years. CSES is the first element of a multi-satellite monitoring system; several satellites are scheduled for the next few years.The High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD) is the main contribution of the Italian collaboration to the mission. It was designed and built in order to detect electrons in the energy range between 3 and 100 MeV, protons between 30 and 200 MeV, and light nuclei in the MeV energy window.The electronics of the detector was designed following stringent requirements on mechanical and thermal stability, power consumption, radiation hardness and double redundancy. The system successfully went through the space qualification tests. In this paper, we describe the HEPD electronics, the space qualification tests performed before launch, and the in-flight performance of the detector.

Large-area TaN superconducting microwire single photon detectors for X-ray detection.

With the development of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors, increasing numbers of important applications are being explored, covering not only low-energy optical photon detection but also high-energy photon and particle detection. In this work, 100-nm-thick TaN superconducting microwire single photon detectors (SMSPDs) with large active areas were prepared for X-ray detection, and their response characteristics to X-rays were studied. The results showed that our TaN SMSPDs were able to detect X-rays at a wide range of bias currents and working temperatures. The detectors could distinguish different energy X-rays under suitable working conditions, and the energy resolving power was strongly related to the bias current.

The August 2018 Geomagnetic Storm Observed by the High-Energy Particle Detector on Board the CSES-01 Satellite

On 25 August 2018, a G3-class geomagnetic storm reached the Earth’s magnetosphere, causing a transient rearrangement of the charged particle environment around the planet, which was detected by the High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD) on board the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES-01). We found that the count rates of electrons in the MeV range were characterized by a depletion during the storm’s main phase and a clear enhancement during the recovery caused by large substorm activity, with the key role played by auroral processes mapped into the outer belt. A post-storm rate increase was localized at L-shells immediately above ∼3 and mostly driven by non-adiabatic local acceleration caused by possible resonant interaction with low-frequency magnetospheric waves.

Trapped Proton Fluxes Estimation Inside the South Atlantic Anomaly Using the NASA AE9/AP9/SPM Radiation Models along the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite Orbit

The radiation belts in the Earth’s magnetosphere pose a hazard to satellite systems and spacecraft missions (both manned and unmanned), heavily affecting payload design and resources, thus resulting in an impact on the overall mission performance and final costs. The NASA AE9/AP9/SPM radiation models for energetic electrons, protons, and plasma provide useful information on the near-Earth environment, but they are still incomplete as to some features and, for some energy ranges, their predictions are not based on a statistically sufficient sample of direct measurements. Therefore, it is of the upmost importance to provide new data and direct measurements to improve their output. In this work, the AP9 model is applied to the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES-01) orbit to estimate the flux of energetic protons over the South Atlantic Anomaly during a short testing period of one day, 1 January 2021. Moreover, a preliminary comparison with proton data obtained from the High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD) on board CSES-01 is carried out. This estimation will serve as the starting ground for a forthcoming complete data analysis, enabling extensive testing and validation of current theoretical and empirical models.

A Substorm Injection Event and the Radiation Belt Structure Observed by Space Radiation Detectors onboard Next Generation Small Satellite-1 (NEXTSat-1)

In this paper, we present observations of the Space Radiation Detectors (SRDs) onboard the Next Generation Small Satellite-1 (NEXTSat-1) satellite. The SRDs, which are a part of the Instruments for the study of Stable/Storm-time Space (ISSS), consist of the Medium-Energy Particle Detector (MEPD) and the High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD). The MEPD can detect electrons, ions, and neutrals with energies ranging from 20 to 400 keV, and the HEPD can detect electrons over an energy range from 0.35 to 2 MeV. In this paper, we report an event where particle flux enhancements due to substorm injections are clearly identified in the MEPD A observations at energies of tens of keV. Additionally, we report a specific example observation of the electron distributions over a wide energy range in which we identify electron spatial distributions with energies of tens to hundreds of keV from the MEPD and with energy ranging up to a few MeV from the HEPD in the slot region and outer radiation belts. In addition, for an ~1.5-year period, we confirm that the HEPD successfully observed the well-known outer radiation belt electron flux distributions and their variations in time and L shell in a way consistent with the geomagnetic disturbance levels. Last, we find that the inner edge of the outer radiation belt is mostly coincident with the plasmapause locations in L, somewhat more consistent at subrelativistic energies than at relativistic energies. Based on these example events, we conclude that the SRD observations are of reliable quality, so they are useful for understanding the dynamics of the inner magnetosphere, including substorms and radiation belt variations.

Research progress of Dark Matter Particle Explorer

Quite a lot of astronomical and cosmological observations reveal that dark matter widely exists in our Universe. It occupies nearly 1/4 of the total energy budget of the Universe, and is about 5 times more abundant than the normal matter. The nature of dark matter is one of the most important fundamental questions of modern physics and astronomy. To probe dark matter particles is also highly competitive among many countries around the world. China has launched the Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE; also known as “Wukong”) to indirectly detect dark matter via high-precision observations of high-energy electrons and gamma-rays. As a high-energy particle detector, the DAMPE data can also be useful for probing the origin and propagation of cosmic rays, which is another century-long problem, and the energetic activities of extreme objects such as black holes and neutron stars. DAMPE has the highest energy resolution for electron and gamma-ray measurements, and the highest electron-proton discrimination capability above TeV energies. Using the data recorded by DAMPE, we obtain by far the most precise measurements of the spectra of cosmic ray electrons and protons, and reveal new spectral features which were not discovered or clarified before. For the total electron plus positron spectrum, the DAMPE result covers an energy range of 25 GeV–4. 6 TeV, which reaches the highest energy among all the space direct detections. A spectral hardening around 50 GeV, and a softening around 0.9 TeV have been revealed by DAMPE. Some hint of fine structures of the spectrum is also shown which requires more data for confirmation or exclusion. The spectral features of the DAMPE electron plus positron spectrum have very interesting and important implications on the origin and distribution of high-energy electron sources. Particularly, the 0.9 TeV break may reveal the fact that sources of TeV electrons distribute discretely in the Galaxy. The energy range coverage of the DAMPE proton spectrum is from 40 GeV to 100 TeV. For the first time, DAMPE measures the proton spectrum up to 100 TeV with a high statistics. Besides the hundreds of GeV spectral hardening, the DAMPE measurement further reveals a clear spectral softening around 14 TeV. The softening feature of the proton spectrum may be an imprint of nearby cosmic ray acceleration sources. Alternatively, the spectral structures of protons may be due to the superposition of multiple source populations. High-energy gamma-rays have also been robustly identified from the DAMPE data. The analysis shows the detection of luminous diffuse emission from the Galactic plane and nearly 250 pointlike sources in the gamma-ray sky, most of which are active galactic nuclei and pulsars. The DAMPE results offer important data in constraining/understanding the properties of dark matter and cosmic rays. We review the design, operation and data analysis of DAMPE in this work, with a focus on the analyses of spectra of cosmic ray electrons and protons.

Dislocation density reduction using overgrowth on hole arrays made in heteroepitaxial diamond substrates

The growth of large-area diamond films with low dislocation density is a landmark in the fabrication of diamond-based power electronic devices or high-energy particle detectors. Here, we report the development of a growth strategy based on the use of micrometric laser-pierced hole arrays to reduce dislocation densities in heteroepitaxial chemical vapor deposition diamond. We show that, under optimal growth conditions, this strategy leads to a reduction in dislocation density by two orders of magnitude to reach an average value of 6 × 105 cm−2 in the region where lateral growth occurred, which is equivalent to that typically measured for commercial type Ib single crystal diamonds.

Control and data acquisition software of the high‐energy particle detector on board the China Seismo‐Electromagnetic Satellite space mission

AbstractThe China Seismo‐Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) space mission—also known as Limadou in Italian—is a scientific collaboration between China and Italy that aims to investigate the structure and dynamics of the iono/magnetosphere, and in particular to study the possible correlation of perturbations to the occurrence of high‐magnitude seismic events. The Chinese satellite houses the Italian high‐energy particle detector (HEPD), an apparatus composed of a silicon tracker and a calorimeter system, which detects electrons and protons in the energy ranges 3–100 and 30–200 MeV, respectively. The satellite was launched on February 2, 2018; after a commissioning phase dedicated to the setting of an optimal configuration, HEPD is fully operational since July 28, 2018. After a general overview of the CSES‐Limadou mission, this article presents the structure of the HEPD apparatus and describes the design and implementation of the software for the embedded computer system that is responsible for HEPD management. The onboard software runs on the digital signal processors of two electronic boards (CPU and data acquisition), monitors system status, handles instrument data acquisition, performs periodic calibration of the subdetectors, performs data compression, and communicates with the satellite. An overview of HEPD in‐flight operations and performance is given in the last section.

Galactic Cosmic-Ray Hydrogen Spectra in the 40–250 MeV Range Measured by the High-energy Particle Detector (HEPD) on board the CSES-01 Satellite between 2018 and 2020

Abstract The High-energy Particle Detector (HEPD) on board the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES-01)—launched on 2018 February 2—is a light and compact payload suitable for measuring electrons (3–100 MeV), protons (30–250 MeV), and light nuclei (up to a few hundreds of MeV). The Sun-synchronous orbit and large acceptance allow HEPD to measure cosmic-ray particles near the ±65° latitude limit for a fair amount of time per day. In this work, three semiannual galactic hydrogen energy spectra between ∼40 and 250 MeV are presented, including a comparison with theoretical spectra from HelMod, a 2D Monte Carlo model developed to simulate the solar modulation of cosmic rays throughout the heliosphere. To our knowledge, these are the first hydrogen energy spectra below 250 MeV measured at 1 au between 2018 and 2020.

Photonic-Crystal Scintillators: Molding the Flow of Light to Enhance X-Ray and γ-Ray Detection.

Scintillators are central for detection of γ-ray, x-ray, and high energy particles in various applications, all seeking higher scintillation yield and rate. However, these are limited by the intrinsic isotropy of spontaneous emission of the scintillation light and its inefficient outcoupling. We propose a new design methodology for scintillators that exploits the Purcell effect to enhance their light emission. As examples, we show 1D photonic crystals from scintillator materials that achieve directional emission and fivefold enhancement in the number of detectable photons per excitation.

Microstructure evolution in two-step-sintering process toward transparent Ce:(Y,Gd)3(Ga,Al)5O12 scintillation ceramics

Scintillators are broadly utilized in high energy particle detection and medical imaging. Ce:(Y,Gd)3(Ga,Al)5O12 ceramics has recently demonstrated excellent scintillation properties and great commercialization potential. The controllable preparation technology for high quality transparent ceramics is urgently needed to promote the industrial production. In this work, using the co-precipitated nanopowder, we fabricated Ce:Gd2YGa3Al2O12 transparent ceramics by the two-step-sintering (pre-sintering followed by hot-isostatic-pressing). The microstructure evolution during sintering process reveals that the specific type of microstructure of pre-sintered ceramics with fine grains, high density and minimum number of residual intergranular pores is the key to achieve transparent ceramics by hot-isostatic-pressing. By controlling sintering process, the type and quantity of pores as well as grain size of ceramics can be tailored to meet the microstructure-controllable preparation of Ce:Gd2YGa3Al2O12 ceramics. The obtained Ce:Gd2YGa3Al2O12 ceramics show the good transmittance (62%@520 nm), high light yield (∼37,500 ph/MeV), fast scintillation decay (61 ns) and good X-ray imaging performance.

Beam test calibrations of the HEPD detector on board the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite

CSES (China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite) is a Chinese-Italian space mission dedicated to monitoring of variations of the electromagnetic field and waves, plasma parameters, and particle fluxes induced by natural sources and artificial emitters in the near-Earth space. The satellite was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert (Inner Mongolia, China) on 2, 2018. The expected mission lifetime amounts to 5 years.The Italian contribution to the mission includes the design and construction of the High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD), aimed to detect electrons in the energy range between 3 and 100 MeV and protons between 30 and 200 MeV, as well as light nuclei in the MeV energy range.In this paper, we describe the calibration procedures applied to HEPD based on data acquired during two tests at accelerator laboratories, which were performed on HEPD Flight Model prior to the delivery to China for final integration. An additional acquisition of cosmic muons was performed in order to better characterize the detector response before launch.

Nuclei charge measurement by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer silicon tracker

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is a high energy particle detector aboard the International Space Station. AMS precisely measures the fluxes of all cosmic-ray nuclei with charge from Z=1 to Z=28 and beyond. The AMS silicon tracker measures energy deposition of charged particles traversing over nine-layer silicon sensors, from L1 to L9. In this paper, the details of the AMS silicon tracker charge measurement method are presented. The obtained charge resolution of the AMS inner tracker (L2 to L8 combined) is 0.1 charge units for carbon, 0.15 charge units for silicon, and 0.3 charge units for iron nuclei.

Superconducting Resonators with Niobium and $${\mathrm{YBa}_{2}\mathrm{Cu}_{3}O_{7-{\delta }}}$$ for Alpha-Particle Detectors

For high-energy particle detection at temperatures above 1 K, we investigated two superconducting films: niobium (Nb) and a high-temperature superconductor, namely $${\mathrm{YBa}}_2{\mathrm{Cu}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_{7-\delta }$$ (YBCO). Lumped element kinetic inductance detectors (LeKID) were fabricated using both the superconducting films. The alpha line (5.49 MeV emitted by Am-241) was irradiated from the top side of the devices. We observed only a very rapid signal from the YBCO-based LeKID, which cannot be attributed to a quasiparticle response because it is much faster than the resonator ring time ($$\sim 1\,{\upmu }$$s). Although the quality factor and noise level of the YBCO-based device were comparable to those of the Nb-base LeKID, the signal was suppressed because of the large gap energy and short quasiparticle lifetime. The performance of the Nb-based LeKID was consistent with expectations: The energy resolution was 17, and the decay time was approximately 1 $${\upmu }$$s. We distinguished between direct absorption events and phonon-mediated events.

Improved scintillating properties in Ce:YAG derived silica fiber with the reduction from Ce4+ to Ce3+ ions

The cerium (Ce)-doped optical fiber materials show great applications in smart lighting, fiber laser, and high-energy ray and particle detection. A major challenge is the efficient prevention of Ce3+ oxidized to Ce4+ ions. Here we report the CO2-laser-heated drawing method for fabricating Ce:YAG derived scintillating optical fiber with a concentration of Ce ions (0.21 wt%), and the effective atomic number is 25.4. The estimated ratio of Ce4+/ΣCe is 37% in the raw YAG ceramics, which can be effectively reduced to 3% in the fiber core because of the negative oxygen atmosphere during the fiber drawing process and the formation of non-bridging oxygen. The result is confirmed by the optical absorption spectrum, X-ray absorption fine structure spectra (XAFS), and Raman spectra. These induce a strong emission peak at 401 nm under the X-ray excitation. Moreover, the normalized integral scintillation efficiency of the Ce:YAG derived fiber is up to ~43% of that of Bi4Ge3O12 (BGO) scintillating crystal. The Ce:YAG derived optical fiber is believed to be a promising candidate for scintillators in remote fiber-optic radiation detection applications.

The HEPD apparatus for the CSES mission

The High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD) is one of the payloads of the CSES space mission. The HEPD is built by the Italian Limadou collaboration and has different goals. It will study the temporal stability of the inner Van Allen radiation belts, the precipitation of trapped particles in the atmosphere and the low energy component of the cosmic rays (5-100 MeV for electrons and 15 - 300 MeV for protons). It has been tested at the Beam Test Facility of the INFN National Laboratory of Frascati, for electrons, and at the Proton Cyclotron of Trento, for protons. Here is presented a study of the performance of the apparatus to separate electrons and protons and identify nuclei up to iron.

The HEPD detector on board CSES satellite: in-flight performance

In this paper we will present a description of the High Energy Particle Detector (HEPD) onboard the China Seismo Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) and its (preliminary) performance in flight.CSES mission aims at monitoring electromagnetic field, plasma and particles perturbations of atmosphere and inner Van Allen belts caused by solar and terrestrial phenomena and to the study of the low energy component of the cosmic rays.The satellite was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located in west of inner Mongolia on February 2nd, 2018 and is now orbiting in nominal condition. It hosts several instruments onboard: two magnetometers, an electrical field detector, a plasma analyser, a Langmuir probe and two particle detectors.The high energy particle detector (HEPD), designed and built by the Italian Limadou collaboration, is able to separate electrons and protons and identify nuclei up to Iron. HEPD provides good energy resolution and high angular resolution for electrons (3-100 MeV) and proton (30-200 MeV). The instrument consists of: 2 planes of double-side silicon microstrip sensors placed on the top of the instrument (direction of particle); 2 two layers of plastic scintillators (trigger) and a calorimeter (constituted by other 16 scintillators and a layer of LYSO sensors). A scintillator veto system completes the instrument. The commissioning of the HEPD and the other instruments on board was successfully completed in July 2018.

About the possibility of an international ground-based Very High Energy particle detector experiment in Ecuador

We discuss the possibility of hosting a big Astrophysics ground-based experiment in Ecuador aimed to detect VHE particles. Ecuador location makes possible to see both the Northern and Southern sky. An additional geographic feature is the presence of one of the highest American mountains, the Chimborazo (6310 m.a.s.l.), that happen to be the highest point on Earth measured from the center of the planet. In the last decade Ecuadorian government has invested resources in higher education and research, with an important policy of training abroad. The effect has been that now many researchers in Physics, Astrophysics, and Engineering are working in universities across the country and collaborating with important experiments like CMS at CERN, Pierre Auger in Argentina, HAWK in Mexico and in LAGO project. All these features make Ecuador an ideal place to host a big VHE particle detector experiment in South America.

Measurement of the low-energy charged particle background with the space detector HEPD

Spaceborne gamma-ray telescopes are operated within a dominant background of charged particles, mainly primary cosmic rays and Earth albedo particles. Dedicated anti-coincidence devices and on-board rejection techniques are needed to reject this background, as well as the best available background models. The high-energy particle detector (HEPD) is a space detector for high-energy particles, which can identify electrons, protons and light nuclei in the energy range from few MeV to many hundreds of MeV, and measure their fluxes. It consists of a high-precision silicon tracker, a versatile trigger system, a range calorimeter, and an anti-coincidence system. HEPD will extend PAMELA and the AMS-02 measurements to lower energies and characterize the orbital radiation environment, then providing very useful data for the future gamma-ray mission development, especially for the optimization of the on-board background rejection.

Feasibility study of neutron production at SLRI beam test facility

SLRI Beam Test Facility (SLRI-BTF) has been constructed in order to increase usage of the Siam Photo Source injector. SLRI-BTF aims to provide electron test beams for calibration and testing of high-energy particle detectors and diagnostic instrumentations. The test-beam energy varies from 40 MeV to 1.2 GeV with adjustable intensity from a few to several millions of electrons per repetition rate. Since the test-beam energy is sufficiently large, the electron test beam can be used to produce photoneutrons resulted from collision of high-energy electrons to metal targets. Similar to the electron test beams, this neutron source will be utilized for calibration and testing of neutron detectors and instrumentations. In this work, the neutron production and its angular dependence has been investigated using the PHITS simulation code. The results show that photoneutrons generated by collision of the high-energy electron beam on a tungsten target are in range of intermediate and fast neutrons or 0.01 - 10 MeV with peak contribution at 0.6 ± 0.1 MeV and uniformly distributed in angular direction. For the primary beam of 108 electrons per spill at SLRI-BTF, the photoneutron flux is predicted to be around 50 neutrons/cm2. Based on this study, the possibility to service a neutron source for users in the future will be determined further.