Heidelberg 2022 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 6: Astrophysics

EP 6.4: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 23. März 2022, 12:00–12:15, EP-H1

A background study via simulations for the ComPol CubeSat experiment — •Cynthia Glas for the ComPol collaboration — Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, München, Deutschland — Technische Universität München, Deutschland

The objective of the CubeSat mission ComPol is to investigate the black hole binary Cygnus X-1 and to improve its physical model by measuring spectrum and polarization in the hard X-ray range. The information about the polarization can be extracted from the kinematics of Compton scattering.

To ensure a correct measurement, all physical processes occurring in the detectors, as well as common background sources need to be understood in advance. Therefore, the response of the setup to cosmic radiation in low earth orbit, as well as the south Atlantic anomaly is simulated with the Monte Carlo toolkit Geant4. Special focus was set on the cosmogenic activation of the CubeSat material. In order to determine which orbits are suitable for the ComPol mission, the activation of each material and the influence of radioactive decays originating from this activation on the individual detectors are studied in detail. To optimize the shielding strategy, simulations with different shielding configurations were performed. The talk will give an overview of the performed simulations, present the conclusions drawn from them, as well as discuss different shielding configurations.

This research was supported by the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany*s Excellence Strategy.