AbstractWe present the design and initial flight results of a balloon-borne hard X-ray spectrometer for observing solar flares. The instrument is designed for quantitative observation of nonthermal and thermal components of solar flare hard X-ray emission, and has an energy range of 15–120 keV and an energy resolution of 3 keV. The instrument is a small (gondola weight 70 kg) system equipped with sixteen 10×10×0.5 mm CdTe detectors, and designed for a 1-day flight at 41 km altitude. Detector temperature of −15 °C was achieved through radiative cooling alone. Pre-flight tests confirmed that all detectors exceeded the target 3 keV resolution. No flares were observed during the 2001 flight, but the second flight on May 24, 2002 succeeded in observing a class M1.1 flare. Preliminary analysis indicates the observed spectrum is consistent with a purely thermal plasma at an unusually high temperature of 47 mK.


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    Title :

    Observation of solar flare hard X-ray spectra using CdTe detectors


    Contributors:
    Kobayashi, K. (author) / Tsuneta, S. (author) / Tamura, T. (author) / Kumagai, K. (author) / Katsukawa, Y. (author) / Kubo, M. (author) / Sakamoto, Y. (author) / Kohara, N. (author) / Yamagami, T. (author) / Saito, Y. (author)

    Published in:

    Advances in Space Research ; 33 , 10 ; 1786-1789


    Publication date :

    2003-05-02


    Size :

    4 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English