Abstract Details

Name: Neeraj Tiwari
Affiliation: PRL, Ahmedabad
Conference ID: ASI2019_404
Title : Design and development of Supra-thermal & Energetic Particle Spectrometer (STEPS), subsystem of ASPEX, onboard Aditya-L1 mission
Authors and Co-Authors : Neeraj K. Tiwari*, S. K. Goyal, A. R. Patel, A. Sarada, T. Ladiya, S. V. Vadawale, M. Shanmugam, D. Chakrabarty, P. Janardhan, A. Sarkar, P. Kumar, P. R. Adhyaru, M. Shah, H. Adalja, S. B. Banerjee, K. P. Subramanian, B. Bapat
Abstract Type : Poster
Abstract Category : Sun and the Solar System
Abstract : Many aspects of the origin, acceleration and anisotropy of energetic particles in the interplanetary medium are poorly understood till date. These energetic particles (energy ranging from a few tens of keVs to a few tens of MeVs) are originated during solar flares, during the passage of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICME) or corotation interaction regions (CIR) through the heliosphere and produced by the terrestrial bow shock. As a consequence, these energetic particles can arrive at the first Lagrangian point (L1) of the Sun-Earth system from many directions. In order to understand the origin, acceleration and anisotropy of the energetic particles, it is, therefore, essential to have multi-directional measurements of both low and high energetic particles. Aditya Solar wind & Particle EXperiment (ASPEX) experiment has been selected to fly onboard Aditya-L1 mission, at Sun-Earth L1 point. ASPEX will make the in-situ, multidirectional measurements of the slow & fast solar wind, supra-thermal particles and solar energetic particles in the energy range of 100 eV to 20 MeV/n using its two sub-systems: Solar Wind & Ion Spectrometer (SWIS) and the Supra Thermal & Energetic Particle Spectrometer (STEPS). The STEPS instrument will measure energy spectrum of high energetic particles from six direction covering the energy range of 20 keV/n to 20 MeV/n. STEPS instrument consists of six detector-units to differentiate directional information of incoming flux. Out of six detector-units, three units will measure energy spectrum with identification of the species (H+ and He++) and rest three will measure integrated energy spectrum. The measurements of He++ and H+ fluxes will also be used to test the efficacy of the alpha-proton ratio in the solar wind as a possible precursor for the arrival of ICME, CIR at the earth’s orbit. In this paper, overall configuration of the STEPS instrument and preliminary results will be presented.