Fundamental Technologies Voyager LECP Pages

An Analysis of the Performance of the Magnetic Deflection System in the Voyager Low Energy Charged Particle Experiment

by Sheela Shodhan

Abstract

The Beta and the Gamma detectors employed in the Low Energy Magnetospheric Particle Analyzer (LEMPA) sensor subsystem of the Low Energy Charged Particle Experiment (LECP) on board Voyagers 1 and 2 primarily measure low energy ł 15 keV electrons.

This thesis based upon the method of Wu [5] presents the responses of these detectors for different incident electron energies by developing numerical models for the magnetic field and sensor subsystem geometry and by developing numerical procedures to follow the particle trajectories inside the sensor subsystem.

We find that for both the detectors, the geometric factors increase with energy, reach a maximum and then decrease with increasing energy. For the Gamma detector, the maximum is at about E=500 keV while for the Beta detector, the maximum is at about E=160 keV.

Chapter One
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Last modified 12/6/02, Tizby Hunt-Ward
tizby@ftecs.com