Geant4 applications in the heliospheric radiation environment

TL;DR

This paper discusses the use of the Geant4 Monte Carlo toolkit to model and analyze the heliospheric radiation environment, aiding in detector design and radiation prediction for space missions.

Contribution

It presents novel applications of Geant4 for simulating the effects of solar system radiation on space instruments and planetary surfaces.

Findings

Effective modeling of radiation effects on detectors

Optimization strategies for space radiation monitors

Predictions of radiation environment on Mars surfaces and orbits

Abstract

The high energy ionizing radiation environment in the solar system consists of three main sources: the radiation belts, galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles. Geant4 is a Monte Carlo radiation transport simulation toolkit, with applications in areas as high energy physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics or medical physics research. In this poster, Geant4 applications to model and study the effects of the heliospheric radiation environment are presented. Specific applications are being developed to study the effect of the radiation environment on detector components, to describe the response and to optimise the design of radiation monitors for future space missions and to predict the radiation environment in Mars surface, orbits and moons.