The Energetic Particle Detector. Energetic particle instrument suite for the Solar Orbiter mission

Rodríguez-Pacheco, J. et al. (2020) The Energetic Particle Detector. Energetic particle instrument suite for the Solar Orbiter mission. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 642, A7. (doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201935287)

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Abstract

After decades of observations of solar energetic particles from space-based observatories, relevant questions on particle injection, transport, and acceleration remain open. To address these scientific topics, accurate measurements of the particle properties in the inner heliosphere are needed. In this paper we describe the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD), an instrument suite that is part of the scientific payload aboard the Solar Orbiter mission. Solar Orbiter will approach the Sun as close as 0.28 au and will provide extra-ecliptic measurements beyond ∼30° heliographic latitude during the later stages of the mission. The EPD will measure electrons, protons, and heavy ions with high temporal resolution over a wide energy range, from suprathermal energies up to several hundreds of megaelectronvolts/nucleons. For this purpose, EPD is composed of four units: the SupraThermal Electrons and Protons (STEP), the Electron Proton Telescope (EPT), the Suprathermal Ion Spectrograph (SIS), and the High-Energy Telescope (HET) plus the Instrument Control Unit that serves as power and data interface with the spacecraft. The low-energy population of electrons and ions will be covered by STEP and EPT, while the high-energy range will be measured by HET. Elemental and isotopic ion composition measurements will be performed by SIS and HET, allowing full particle identification from a few kiloelectronvolts up to several hundreds of megaelectronvolts/nucleons. Angular information will be provided by the separate look directions from different sensor heads, on the ecliptic plane along the Parker spiral magnetic field both forward and backwards, and out of the ecliptic plane observing both northern and southern hemispheres. The unparalleled observations of EPD will provide key insights into long-open and crucial questions about the processes that govern energetic particles in the inner heliosphere.

Item Type:Articles
Additional Information:We acknowledge the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades for their invaluable support on the development of the EPD suite and the ICU under grants FEDER/MCIU – Agencia Estatal de Investigación/Projects ESP2105-68266-R and ESP2017-88436-R. We thank the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the German Space Agency (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, e.V., (DLR)) for their unwavering support of STEP, EPT, and HET under grants numbers 50OT0901, 50OT1202, and 50OT1702; and ESA for supporting the build of SIS under contract number SOL.ASTR.CON.00004, and the University of Kiel and the Land Schleswig-Holstein for their support of SIS.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Kontar, Professor Eduard
Authors: Rodríguez-Pacheco, J., Wimmer-Schweingruber, R.F., Mason, G.M., Ho, G.C., Sánchez-Prieto, S., Prieto, M., Martín, C., Seifert, H., Andrews, G.B., Kulkarni, S.R., Panitzsch, L., Boden, S., Böttcher, S.I., Cernuda, I., Elftmann, R., Espinosa Lara, F., Gómez-Herrero, R., Terasa, C., Almena, J., Begley, S., Böhm, E., Blanco, J.J., Boogaerts, W., Carrasco, A., Castillo, R., da Silva Fariña, A., de Manuel González, V., Drews, C., Dupont, A.R., Eldrum, S., Gordillo, C., Gutiérrez, O., Haggerty, D.K., Hayes, J. R., Heber, B., Hill, M.E., Jüngling, M., Kerem, S., Knierim, V., Köhler, J., Kolbe, S., Kulemzin, A., Lario, D., Lees, W.J., Liang, S., Martínez Hellín, A., Meziat, D., Montalvo, A., Nelson, K.S., Parra, P., Paspirgilis, R., Ravanbakhsh, A., Richards, M., Rodríguez-Polo, O., Russu, A., Sánchez, I., Schlemm, C.E., Schuster, B., Seimetz, L., Steinhagen, J., Tammen, J., Tyagi, K., Varela, T., Yedla, M., Yu, J., Agueda, N., Aran, A., Horbury, T.S., Klecker, B., Klein, K.-L., Kontar, E., Krucker, S., Maksimovic, M., Malandraki, O., Owen, C.J., Pacheco, D., Sanahuja, B., Vainio, R., Connell, J.J., Dalla, S., Dröge, W., Gevin, O., Gopalswamy, N., Kartavykh, Y.Y., Kudela, K., Limousin, O., Makela, P., Mann, G., Önel, H., Posner, A., Ryan, J.M., Soucek, J., Hofmeister, S., Vilmer, N., Walsh, A.P., Wang, L., Wiedenbeck, M.E., Wirth, K., and Zong, Q.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
Journal Name:Astronomy and Astrophysics
Publisher:EDP Sciences
ISSN:0004-6361
ISSN (Online):1432-0746
Published Online:30 September 2020

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