Performance Tests of a Dust Telescope

Details Performance Tests of a Dust Telescope Performance Tests of a Dust Telescope

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p41a0927g&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P41A-0927

Computer Science

Performance

2129 Interplanetary Dust, 2194 Instruments And Techniques, 6015 Dust, 6213 Dust

Scientific paper

A dust telescope is a combination of a dust trajectory sensor together with an analyzer for the chemical composition of dust particles in space. Dust particles' trajectories are determined by the measurement of the electric signals that are induced when a charged grain flies through a position sensitive electrode system. The goal of the trajectory sensor is to measure dust charges in the range 10-16 to 10-13 C and dust speeds in the range 6 to 100 km/s. The trajectory sensor has four sensor planes consisting of about 15 wire electrodes each. Two adjacent planes have orthogonal wire direction. An ASIC charge sensitive amplifier has been developed with a RMS noise of about 1.5 10-17 C. The signals from 32 electrodes are digitized and sampled at 20 MHz rate by an ASIC transient recorder. This trajectory sensor was subject to performance tests at the Heidelberg dust accelerator. Signals from dust particles in the speed range from 5 to 30 km/s demonstrate that trajectories can be measured with accuracies of ~ 1° in direction, and ~ 1% in speed. A large area chemical analyzer has been designed and fabricated that has an impact area of > 0.1 m2 and sufficient mass resolution in order to resolve ions with atomic mass number up to 100. The mass spectrometer consists of the annular target area with an acceleration grid and the single-stage reflectron and the central ion detector. Several field configurations have been found that provide a theoretical mass resolution of M/Δ M > 150. An Ion Detector of 50 to 110 mm radius is necessary to collect all generated ions. Two lab models have been constructed (one in Heidelberg and one in Boulder) and first laser and dust accelerator tests with different projectile materials have been performed. Spectra of positive and negative ions demonstrate that the performance goal (M/Δ M > 150) has been reached. Acknowledgements: This research is supported by NASA grant NAG5-11782 and by DLR grant 50OO0201.

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