On-orbit calibration and long-term performance of the DAMPE trigger system

TL;DR

This paper presents a new calibration method for DAMPE's trigger system, analyzing its long-term stability over 8 years to ensure accurate cosmic ray measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a novel threshold calibration approach that accounts for electronic noise and tracks long-term threshold evolution in space-based detectors.

Findings

Trigger thresholds increase by ~0.9% annually in the first 4 calorimeter layers.

High-energy trigger efficiency decreases by about 5% per year at 2 GeV.

Efficiency variation is less than 0.05% above 30 GeV.

Abstract

The DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is a satellite-borne particle detector for measurements of high-energy cosmic rays and {\gamma}-rays. DAMPE has been operating smoothly in space for more than 8 years since launch on December 17, 2015. The trigger logic of DAMPE is designed according to the deposited energy information recorded by the calorimeter. The precise calibration of the trigger thresholds and their long-term evolutions are very important for the scientific analysis of DAMPE. In this work, we develop a new method for the threshold calibration, considering the influence from the electronic noise, and obtain the long-term evolutions of the trigger thresholds. The average increase rate of the trigger thresholds for the first 4 layers of the calorimeter is found to be about 0.9% per year, resulting in variations of the high-energy trigger efficiency of cosmic ray electrons by about -5% per year at 2 GeV and less than about -0.05% above 30 GeV.