Research Article

Implementation and validation of the GEANT4/AtRIS code to model the radiation environment at Mars

Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics (IEAP), University of Kiel, Leibnitzstr. 11, 24118 Kiel, Germany

^* Corresponding authors: astro.jingnan@gmail.com; banjac@physik.uni-kiel.de

Received: 9 October 2018
Accepted: 22 December 2018

Abstract

A new GEANT4 particle transport model – the Atmospheric Radiation Interaction Simulator (AtRIS, Banjac et al. 2018. J Geophys Res Space Phys 123. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JA026042) – has been recently developed in order to model the interaction of radiation with planets. The upcoming instrumentational advancements in the exoplanetary science, in particular transit spectroscopy capabilities of missions like JWST and E-ELT, have motivated the development of a particle transport code with a focus on providing the necessary flexibility in planet specification (atmosphere and soil geometry and composition, tidal locking, oceans, clouds, etc.) for the modeling of radiation environment for exoplanets. Since there are no factors limiting the applicability of AtRIS to Mars and Venus, AtRIS’ unique flexibility opens possibilities for new studies.

Following the successful validation against Earth measurements (Banjac et al. 2018. J Geophys Res Space Phys 123. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JA026042), this work applies AtRIS with a specific implementation of the Martian atmospheric and regolith structure to model the radiation environment at Mars. We benchmark these first modeling results based on different GEANT4 physics lists with the energetic particle spectra recently measured by the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on the surface of Mars. The good agreement between AtRIS and the actual measurement provides one of the first and sound validations of AtRIS and the preferred physics list which could be recommended for predicting the radiation field of other conceivable (exo)planets with an atmospheric environment similar to Mars.