Prediction and Understanding of Soft-proton Contamination...
By Elena A. Kronberg
A major source of background in X-ray observations are soft protons (few tens to hundreds of keV) hitting the focal plane of the telescope. This background could dramatically impact the Athena mission. In this study, we developed a model to predict the background contamination using 12 years of XMM-Newton observations and machine learning. The analysis indicates that future missions should minimize observations during times associated with high solar wind speeds and that they should avoid closed magnetospheric field lines.