Simulation Of Cubesat Caliber Particle Detector "Mira_ep" Response To Energetic Electrons And Protons Using Geant4 Package

In recent years, interest in revealing, registering, analyzing and interpretation of the short-term (0.1-1 s) sharp increases in the number of high-energy charged particles at LEO (Low Earth Orbit) has substantially increased. This is due to the profound influence of geomagnetic disturbances on the state of the Van Allen radiation belts, one of the important components of space weather. At the same time, in recent years, principally new technologies have been rapidly developed, both in the area of detection of the elementary charged particles and in construction of space microelectronics. In particular, over the past years, nanosatellites in the CubeSat standard were developed, manufactured and launched into LEO, whose mission was to record and study the characteristics of electron microbursts precipitating from the Earth radiation belts.Here, we present the concept of a compact instrument developed in the 1U CubeSat standard which is aimed to study the nature of high-energy charged particles microbursts present in the Earth magnetosphere. A functional diagram, a description of the structural modules and the technical characteristics of the miniaturized electron-proton recorder-analyzer MiRA_ep are shown. We have carried out and present the results of computer simulation of the physical processes caused by high-energy electron and proton passage through sensors of the detector head of the MiRA_ep device. The simulation was carried out with the Monte Carlo method using the CERN GEANT4 package. The values of most probable deposited energies were calculated for a wide range of primary electrons and proton energies. This allowed us to make a conclusion about the effective energy ranges of the proposed instrument. The results of these simulations will be used in developing analog and digital signal processing electronic units.