Laboratory Benchtop Accelerator for Charged Particle Detector Calibration

This proposal aims to evaluate several elements that could be assembled into a desktop-scale linear accelerator explicitly designed to calibrate space weather sensors using charged particle beams with energies and fluxes consistent with our solar system’s electrodynamic activities. Ideally, all space weather sensors would have a common calibration in a controlled environment that stimulates the sensor with all anticipated energies, particle species, and fluxes, both in-band and out-of-band. The proposed system would be a small, affordable standard calibration source for such sensors. Energetic charged particles as well as high energy photons, primarily from our sun, populate our solar system. This population fluctuates with solar activity such as sun spots, coronal mass ejections, and x-ray bursts. A variety of sensors monitor this activity providing insight into the impact of this space weather on spacecraft and astronauts. Data from space weather sensors aid anomaly resolution observed on space missions.