Monte Carlo simulations of the Galileo energetic particle detector

Monte Carlo radiation transport studies have been performed for the Galileo spacecraft energetic particle detector (EPD) in order to study its response to energetic electrons and protons. Three-dimensional Monte Carlo radiation transport codes, MCNP version 4B (for electrons) and MCNPX version 2.2.3 (for protons), were used throughout the study. The results are presented in the form of “geometric factors” for the high-energy channels studied in this paper: B1, DC2, and DC3 for electrons and B0, DC0, and DC1 for protons. The geometric factor is the energy-dependent detector response function that relates the incident particle fluxes to instrument count rates. The trend of actual data measured by the EPD was successfully reproduced using the geometric factors obtained in this study.