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Statistical Error Analysis on White-Light Filter Ratio Experiments to Measure Electron Parameters

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Abstract

The filter-ratio technique to remotely measure electron temperature and speed using four color filters in visible light and a polarization camera was described in detail in previous works, in which we quantified the systematic error associated with using models of a symmetric corona to interpret results from an asymmetric corona. We also showed the criteria applied to select the bandwidths of filters and the pros and cons of replacing the traditional linear polarizer with a polarization camera to measure pB. What started in the 1990s by ground experiments conducted during total solar eclipses that lasted for a few minutes led to a balloon-borne experiment lasting eight hours in 2019 and will blossom into a space experiment on the International Space Station in 2023. Due to constraints on the bandwidths of the four filters, a successful mission requires quantification of the statistical error using Monte Carlo simulations to generate two feasibility profiles, which are unique to the design parameters of the coronagraph, to comprehend the feasibility to measure temperature and speed within the desired temporal and spatial resolutions. For the statistical error analysis, we use modeled K- and F-corona profiles, representative theoretical diffraction, scattering, and vignetting profiles, assumed efficiencies for lenses, mirrors, and polarizers, assumed detector properties on quantum efficiency, full-well depth, dark noise, and read noise, and assumed instrument properties on aperture diameter, solid angle, and pixel resolution.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewer for their time for reviewing the paper and for the valuable comments. The responses for many of the comments were incorporated in the paper, which greatly improved the clarity of the presentation. N.L. Reginald was supported by NASA grant PL10A-125.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Physics, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 20064, USA

    Nelson Reginald

  2. MC 671, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA

    Nelson Reginald & Jeffrey Newmark

  3. MC 674, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA

    Lutz Rastaetter

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  1. Nelson Reginald
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Correspondence to Nelson Reginald.

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Reginald, N., Newmark, J. & Rastaetter, L. Statistical Error Analysis on White-Light Filter Ratio Experiments to Measure Electron Parameters. Sol Phys 296, 146 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-021-01887-1

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