Impacts of The Radiation Environment At L2 On Bolometers Onboard The Herschel Space Observatory

TL;DR

This paper investigates how cosmic rays at L2 affect Herschel's bolometers, analyzing glitch occurrences, radiation environment data, and the impact on infrared observations to improve detector resilience.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of cosmic ray effects on Herschel's bolometers and correlates radiation measurements with observed detector glitches at L2.

Findings

Cosmic ray-induced glitches are frequent on Herschel's bolometers.

Radiation environment at L2 influences detector performance.

Glitch rates correlate with radiation monitor data.

Abstract

We present the effects of cosmic rays on the detectors onboard the Herschel satellite. We describe in particular the glitches observed on the two types of cryogenic far- infrared bolometer inside the two instruments PACS and SPIRE. The glitch rates are also reported since the launch together with the SREM radiation monitors aboard Herschel and Planck spacecrafts. Both have been injected around the Lagrangian point L2 on May 2009. This allows probing the radiation environment around this orbit. The impacts on the observation are finally summarized.