Soft X-ray Energy Detection from Broadband Images by the Solar Aspect Monitor (SAM) on Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO)
Abstract
Launched in February of this year, the EUV Variability Experiment (EVE) on the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) provides solar soft X-ray and EUV measurements with unprecedented spectral resolution (0.1 nm), temporal cadence (10 seconds), and accuracy (20%). EVE’s Solar Aspect Monitor (SAM) is a pinhole camera with thin metal filters and a CCD detector. SAM is sensitive from 0.1 nm to 7 nm and provides imaging with resolution of about 15 arc-second per pixel. Because the charge in a SAM pixel is proportional to the photon energy for individual events, spectral information can be obtained from the SAM image. This is possible wherever individual photon events can be isolated. The pinhole aperture and rapid sampling time (10 s) allow individual photon events to be found over much of the image. The detection process is complicated by detector noise events, particle impacts, and photon events from longer wavelengths also observed by EVE. This study presents a probability-weighting approach developed to isolate photon events from other sources. We show that a statistical approach provides a robust method for obtaining spectral information from SAM in the 0.1 to 7 nm wavelength range.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFMSH11A1594L
- Keywords:
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- 7538 SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY / Solar irradiance;
- 7554 SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY / X-rays;
- gamma rays;
- and neutrinos;
- 7594 SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY / Instruments and techniques