The Calibration of the Flight Radiation Environment Detector (FRED)
Abstract
The mixed radiation field in the Earth's atmosphere is caused by the interaction of cosmic and trapped radiation with the atmosphere. A plethora of secondary particles is created which, together with the primary radiation, creates this complex natural mixed radiation field. Apart from charged particles (predominantly protons, electrons, muons, pions, and alpha particles)), it also contains neutral particles, i.e., neutrons and gamma rays, which are generally difficult to measure. The Flight Radiation Environment Detector (FRED) was designed to measure quantitatively the contributions of the charged and neutral components. It consists of four segmented silicon solid-state detectors which form a particle telescope and also form an efficient anti-coincidence to separate the neutral radiation. Thus FRED is also designed to measure the respective dose rate from charged and neutral particles. Here we present the general design of FRED and the results of a calibration campaign at the Heavy Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba (HIMAC) facility at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS), Japan.
- Publication:
-
International Cosmic Ray Conference
- Pub Date:
- 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013ICRC...33.1977M
- Keywords:
-
- FRED;
- silicon detector;
- cosmic rays