A spherical model for computing polarized radiation in Titan's atmosphere

The Huygens descent through Titan's atmosphere in January 2005 will provide invaluable information about Titan's atmospheric composition and aerosol properties. The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) will perform upward and downward looking radiation observations at various spectral ranges and spatial resolutions. To prepare the DISR data interpretation we have developed a new model for radiation transfer in Titan's atmosphere. The model solves for the full three-dimensional polarized radiation field in spherical geometry. However, the atmosphere itself is assumed to be spherically symmetric. The model is initialized with a fast-to-compute plane–parallel solution based on the doubling and adding algorithm that incorporates a spherical correction for the incoming direct solar beam. The full three-dimensional problem is then solved using the characteristics method combined with the Picard iterative approximation as described in Rozanov et al. (J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer 69 (2001) 491). Aerosol scattering properties are calculated with a new microphysical model. In this formulation, aerosols are assumed to be fractal aggregates and include methane gas absorption embedded into the extinction coefficient. The resulting radiance of the model atmosphere's internal field is presented for two prescribed DISR wavelengths.     

天宫2号POLAR探测器的低能X射线在轨定标

伽马暴偏振探测仪(POLAR)是天宫2号实验室上搭载的一个γ射线偏振仪,于2016年9月15日搭载在天宫2号进入低轨运行,主要用于探测在50-500 keV能区的硬X射线辐射的线偏振.POLAR由25个模块组成,每个模块有64个塑料闪烁体棒,总计有1600个塑料闪烁体棒,具有较大的有效探测面积和视场.在轨运行期间探测到多个小耀斑,它们的硬X射线光子能量通常小于50 keV,无法直接使用在轨和地面的高能定标结果来进行能谱分析.结合拉马第太阳高能光谱成像探测器(RHESSI)对耀斑SOL2016112907能谱的观测和蒙特卡洛模拟,对耀斑期间被激活的闪烁体棒进行能量低于50 keV的低能相对定标.虽然定标得到的能量阈值(～10 keV)和转换因子相对稳定,但是和高能定标给出的结果相比有显著差异,并且不同闪烁体棒显示出的差异没有明显的规律性.