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High Energy Particle Telescope Suite Design: Electron Microburst Detector and Read-out Electronics
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- Author / Creator
- Telikicherla Kandala, Anant Kumar
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In-situ measurements of energetic particle precipitation in the near-Earth space environment are essential for understanding the governing physical processes responsible for this precipitation, as well as to elucidate the possible impacts of space radiation on the Earth’s atmosphere. This thesis describes the design elements of a High Energy Particle Telescope, which is being developed to fly onboard the RAdiation Impacts on Climate and Atmospheric Loss Satellite (RADICALS) mission. The particular focus of this thesis is the design and development of two components of the particle telescope: (a) a miniaturized radiation detector and (b) accompanying signal processing electronics. The designed detector is a novel multi-pixel photon counter (silicon photomultiplier) based scintillation detector, that is optimized to measure electron microbursts, which are bursty and short timescale (< 1 s) bursts of electron precipitation arising from the scattering of energetic (having energies ranging from a few keV to MeV) electrons from the Van Allen belts into the Earth's atmosphere. The detector can resolve sub-relativistic and relativistic microbursts with energies between 200 keV and 3 MeV at 10 ms cadence. The detector and electronics have been designed with a modular architecture enabling use on future cubesats, balloons, sounding rockets and small-satellite missions. A version of this detector has also been realized as a part of the Payload for Energetic Particle Precipitation Education and Research-eXperiment (PEPPER-X), which is slated to launch on the NASA RockSat-X student sounding rocket mission in August 2024. A successful launch on the sounding rocket platform would raise the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the detector and electronics, in advance of the RADICALS mission.
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- Subjects / Keywords
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2024
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Science
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Library with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.