AGILE: Advanced enerGetic Ion eLectron tElescope

AGILE: Advanced enerGetic Ion eLectron tElescope Our goal is to develop an innovative instrument to characterize solar, magnetospheric, and, cosmic ray particles. AGILE, will be a compact, low mass, and, low power particle telescope that provides particle identification with unprecedented precision, and cover a wide energy range in multiple differential energy channels to characterize particle spectra. The innovative aspect of AGILE will be to fully digitize the waveform of the charge pulse (i.e., digital signal processing) resulting from energy loss of incident particles in solid-state detectors (SSDs). This technique will enable particle species identification with high accuracy and reliability. AGILE measurements of charged particles advance the broad Heliospheric science goals of: (i) acceleration and transport of charged particles in the inner heliosphere, e.g., solar energetic particles (SEP) (ii) explore processes in the remote heliosphere, viz., the termination shock and the heliosheath, e.g., anomalous cosmic rays (ACR) and, (iii) magnetospheric relativistic electron dynamics, e.g., electron injection into the inner zone. AGILE achieves measurement objectives using: (i) the first space flight application of fast digital signal processing for particle identification, (ii) flight proven solid state detector technology, and (iii) sophisticated onboard software algorithms for particle energy and species identification. AGILE measurements of will cover energy ranges critical to the understanding of SEP and ACR and resolve ion isotopes (e.g. He3 vs. He4) with high accuracy. AGILE uses a new chip, SAMPIC, and associated signal amplifier developed in Orsay, Saclay, and the University of Kansas. SAMPIC provides fast signal sampling of up to 10 GSa/s with low power consumption of ~10 mW per channel, good radiation tolerance, and built-in data reduction. A version of the SAMPIC board has already been tested and used in the high radiation environment of the Large Hadron Collider. These tests at the LHC have shown that the signal properties such as rise-time, S/N ratio are retained after amplification, with improved performance. To begin with, AGILE will comprise of a stack of conventional SSD of varying thicknesses, optimized to measure both electrons and ions. We will then explore novel detectors such as Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGAD) and diamond detectors. These detectors show great potential for space instrumentation. During the first year, hardware efforts will focus on using SAMPIC-based front-end electronics to acquire waveforms generated by the passage of a particle. Software algorithms dedicated to particle identification will be developed and tested. During second year these algorithms will be extended to perform on-line data analysis using a low power, space-qualified FPGA. During the third year an engineering model of AGILE will be validated in a test beam with a standard SSD stack as well as a combination of SSD with LGAD or diamond detectors. Our proposed activity falls squarely within one of NASA's strategic objectives, (The 2014 NASA Strategic Plan). Strategic Goal 1 explicitly mentions the need to "develop the new technologies that will open the space frontier". Objective 1.4 lists fundamental questions about Sun-Earth system, "What causes the Sun to vary? How do geospace, planetary space environments, and the heliosphere respond? What are the impacts to humanity?" and notes the importance of understanding "penetrating radiation and energetic particles". AGILE will enable advancing all these stated NASA goals by using state of the art technology to characterize energetic particles addressing not only scientific questions of acceleration, transport and loss of energetic particles but also their space weather aspects. Development of AGILE is therefore directly responsive to the H-TIDeS instrument and technology development (ITD) and the SMD Heliophysics Research Program.

Support NASA's Heliophysics strategic science objectives to understand the Sun and its interactions with Earth and the solar system, including space weather. This will be achieved by developing/demonstrating instrumentation technology necessary to address the following science goals: Explore the physical processes in the space environment from the Sun to the Earth and throughout the solar system; Advance our understanding of the connections that link the Sun, the Earth, planetary space environments, and the outer reaches of our solar system; Develop the knowledge and capability to detect and predict extreme conditions in space to protect life and society and to safeguard human and robotic explorers beyond Earth.

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