Characteristics and Energy Dependence of Recurrent Galactic Cosmic-Ray Flux Depressions and of a Forbush Decrease with LISA Pathfinder

Armano, M.; Audley, H.; Baird, J.; Bassan, M.; Benella, Simone; Binétruy, P.; Born, M.; Bortoluzzi, D.; Cavalleri, A.; Cesarini, A.; Cruise, A. M.; Danzmann, K.; Silva, M. de Deus; Diepholz, I.; Dixon, G. J.; Dolesi, R.; Fabi, Michele; Ferraioli, L.; Ferroni, V.; Finetti, N.; Fitzsimons, E.; Freschi, M.; Gesa, L.; Gibert, F.; Giardini, Domenico; Giusteri, R.; Grimani, C.; Grzymisch, J.; Harrison, I.; Heinzel, Gerhard; Hewitson, M.; Hollington, D.; Hoyland, D.; Hueller, M.; Inchauspé, H.; Jennrich, O.; Jetzer, Philippe; Karnesis, Nikolaos; Kaune, B.; Korsakova, Natalia; Killow, C. J.; Laurenza, M.; Lobo, J. A.; Lloro, I.; Liu, L.; López-Zaragoza, J. P.; Maarschalkerweerd, R.; Mance, D.; Martín, Vicente; Martin-Polo, L.; Martino, J.; Martín-Porqueras, F.; Mateos, I.; McNamara, P. W.; Mendes, José F. G.; Mendes, L.; Nofrarias, M.; Paczkowski, S.; Perreur-Lloyd, M.; Petiteau, Antoine; Pivato, P.; Plagnol, E.; Ramos‐Castro, J.; Reiche, J.; Robertson, D. I.; Rivas, F.; Russano, G.; Sabbatini, Federico; Slutsky, J.; Sopuerta, Carlos F.; Sumner, T. J.; Telloni, Daniele; Texier, D.; Thorpe, James; Vetrugno, D.; Vitale, S.; Wanner, Gudrun; Ward, H.; Wass, Peter; Weber, William J.; Wissel, L.; Wittchen, A.; Zambotti, Andrea; Zenoni, C.; Zweifel, Peter

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aaa774

Cited by 37 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(63 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Moreover, these missions contain a suite of instruments that allow a complete characterisation of the plasma, tracking parameters such as the solar wind speed or the number density of the plasma that we will refer in the following. Nonetheless, it is worth noticing that, although not designed for that, the radiation monitor on-board LISA Pathfinder (Canizares et al 2011;Armano et al 2018a) allowed for the detection of the passage of large scale interplanetary structures such as high-speed solar wind streams and interplanetary counterparts of coronal mass ejections generating recurrent and non recurrent depressions of the galactic cosmic-ray flux (Armano et al 2018c(Armano et al , 2019c.…”

Section: Non-stationarities In the Magnetic Field Fluctuationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spacecraft and interplanetary contributions to the magnetic environment on-board LISA Pathfinder

Armano

Audley

Baird

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

LISA Pathfinder (LPF) has been a space-based mission designed to test new technologies that will be required for a gravitational wave observatory in space. Magnetically driven forces play a key role in the instrument sensitivity in the low-frequency regime (mHz and below), the measurement band of interest for a space-based observatory. The magnetic field can couple to the magnetic susceptibility and remanent magnetic moment from the test masses and disturb them from their geodesic movement. LISA Pathfinder carried on-board a dedicated magnetic measurement subsystem with noise levels of 10 nT Hz −1/2 from 1 Hz down to 1 mHz. In this paper we report on the magnetic measurements throughout LISA Pathfinder operations. We characterise the magnetic environment within the spacecraft, study the time evolution of the magnetic field and its stability down to 20 µHz, where we measure values around 200 nT Hz −1/2 and identify two different frequency regimes, one related to the interplanetary magnetic field and the other to the magnetic field originating inside the spacecraft. Finally, we characterise the non-stationary component of the fluctuations of the magnetic field below the mHz and relate them to the dynamics of the solar wind.

show abstract

Section: Non-stationarities In the Magnetic Field Fluctuationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spacecraft and interplanetary contributions to the magnetic environment on-board LISA Pathfinder

Armano

Audley

Baird

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The increasing trend of the data is due to the decreasing solar modulation during the LPF mission [30]. Observations are also characterized by the presence of 45 recurrent variations >2 days, 3 FDs and 23 non-recurrent variations <2 days [12,13]. The commencement of each recurrent depression was set at the beginning of each continuous decrease of the count rate observed for more than 12 h. Depressions lasting more than 1 day and amplitude >1.5% were considered.…”

Section: Gcr Flux Long and Short-term Variations Observed With Lpfmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These findings will be taken into account for future mission performance studies. Three weak FDs were observed on board LPF on 20 July 2016, 2 August 2016 and 27 May 2017 [12,13] at the passage of ICMEs. The first two events are shown in Figure 10, while the last one appears in Figure 11.…”

Section: Gcr Flux Long and Short-term Variations Observed With Lpfmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The LPF observations [12,13] are used here to study the role of GCR short-term variations with respect to proton differential flux measurements averaged during different Bartels rotation (BR), i.e., 27-day Sun periods since 1832 February 8. This approach was adopted to reduce the influence of the solar modulation decrease during the mission elapsed time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Study of Galactic Cosmic-Ray Flux Modulation by Interplanetary Plasma Structures for the Evaluation of Space Instrument Performance and Space Weather Science Investigations

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The role of high-energy particles in limiting the performance of on-board instruments was studied for the European Space Agency (ESA) Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Pathfinder (LPF) and ESA/National Astronautics and Space Administration Solar Orbiter missions. Particle detectors (PD) placed on board the LPF spacecraft allowed for testing the reliability of pre-launch predictions of galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) energy spectra and for studying the modulation of proton and helium overall flux above 70 MeV n − 1 on a day-by-day basis. GCR flux variations up to approximately 15% in less than a month were observed with LPF orbiting around the Lagrange point L1 between 2016 and 2017. These variations appeared barely detected or undetected in neutron monitors. In this work the LPF data and contemporaneous observations carried out with the magnetic spectrometer AMS-02 experiment are considered to show the effects of GCR flux short-term variations with respect to monthly averaged measurements. Moreover, it is shown that subsequent large-scale interplanetary structures cause a continuous modulation of GCR fluxes. As a result, small Forbush decreases cannot be considered good proxies for the transit of interplanetary coronal mass ejections and for geomagnetic storm forecasting.

show abstract

“…A charged test mass then interacts with the conducting surfaces that surround it via the Coulomb force, or, at a much smaller level, with any residual magnetic fields via the Lorentz force [8]. Charging is caused by particle radiation from two main sources: Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) and Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) [9,10]. Simulations predicted that the ever present but variable flux of GCRs would charge the test masses positively at a rate of +10 to +100 e s −1 , while transient SEP events occurring at most a few times per year could enhance the charging rate by several orders of magnitude [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precision charge control for isolated free-falling test masses: LISA pathfinder results

Armano¹,

Audley²,

Baird³

et al. 2018

Phys. Rev. D

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The LISA Pathfinder charge management device was responsible for neutralising the cosmic ray induced electric charge that inevitably accumulated on the free-falling test masses at the heart of the experiment. We present measurements made on ground and in-flight that quantify the performance of this contactless discharge system which was based on photo-emission under UV illumination. In addition, a two-part simulation is described that was developed alongside the hardware. Modelling of the absorbed UV light within the Pathfinder sensor was carried out with the GEANT4 software toolkit and a separate MATLAB charge transfer model calculated the net photocurrent between the test masses and surrounding housing in the presence of AC and DC electric fields. We confront the results of these models with observations and draw conclusions for the design of discharge systems for future experiments like LISA that will also employ free-falling test masses.

show abstract

Characteristics and Energy Dependence of Recurrent Galactic Cosmic-Ray Flux Depressions and of a Forbush Decrease with LISA Pathfinder

Cited by 37 publications

References 63 publications

Spacecraft and interplanetary contributions to the magnetic environment on-board LISA Pathfinder

Spacecraft and interplanetary contributions to the magnetic environment on-board LISA Pathfinder

Study of Galactic Cosmic-Ray Flux Modulation by Interplanetary Plasma Structures for the Evaluation of Space Instrument Performance and Space Weather Science Investigations

Precision charge control for isolated free-falling test masses: LISA pathfinder results

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About