Simulations and software development for the Hard X-ray Imager onboard ASO-S

Abstract

China’s first solar mission, the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S), is now changing from Phase B to Phase C. Its main scientific objectives are summarized as ‘1M2B’, namely magnetic field and two types of bursts (solar flares and coronal mass ejections). Among the three scientific payloads, Hard X-ray Imager (HXI) observes images and spectra of X-ray bursts in solar flares. In this paper, we briefly report on the progresses made by the HXI science team (data and software team) during the design phase (till May 2019). These include simulations of HXI imaging, optimization of HXI grids, development of imaging algorithms, estimation of orbital background, as well as in-orbit calibration plan. These efforts provided guidance for the engineering, improved HXI’s imaging capability and reduced the cost of the instrument.

Design of front-end electronics for HXI spectrometer flight model on-board ASO-S satellite

“…For large solar flare, X-ray flux will rise by 4-5 orders of magnitudes [8]. According to a simulation [9], the approximate maximum event rate is 50 kHz among all the detector units. Thus, the dead time of each channel of FEE should not exceed 2 μs.…”

Environmental tests of the HXI spectrometer for the ASO-S mission

“…Additional information about HXI-C and HXI-E can be found in Refs. [7][8]; 2.2 HXI-S description The HXI-S is an X-ray spectrometer that can absorb the energy of X-rays from 30 to 200 keV. As exploded in fig.…”

Monitoring and research of high-energy solar flare emissions with GECAM

“…这里我们仅关 注GRD. 每 颗 卫 星 共 有25个GRD模 块, 负 责 测 量6 [28] , 还需要太 阳X射 线 成 像 仪 器 来 辅 助 鉴 别 太 阳 事 件, 如 欧 洲 主导的Solar Orbiter/STIX, 我国的ASO-S/HXI (Hard X-ray Imager [29,30] 占主导地位, 因此,硬X射线图像多呈现双足点源结 构(图 1(c), 需注意这里的部分足点结构位于日面边 缘的背后而被遮挡). 但近年来也发现耀斑环之上存 在硬X射线源或双X射线源等新的日冕X射线结构, 对理解磁重联和粒子加速有重要意义 [36][37][38][39][40] .…”