CCALSPEC - CALET Calorimeter Results Catalog

Overview

The CCALSPEC database table records the spectra and time histogram results obtained with the CALET Calorimeter (CCAL), one of the two instruments in the scientific payload on the CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) mission. The calorimeter consists of three components: an initial layer CHarge Detector (CHD), the IMaging Calorimeter (IMC) and the Thick AbSorption Calorimeter (TASC). The calorimeter can measure all-electron spectrum and the hadronic component of cosmic rays in the energy range up to ~10 TeV.

CALET is a Japanese mission led by JAXA, in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and NASA, and it is dedicated to the study of high energy cosmic rays. CALET was launched on August 19, 2015, by a Japanese carrier, H2 Transfer Vehicle, and robotically installed on the Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility (JEM-EF) on the International Space Station (ISS). CALET started scientific observations in October 2015.

Catalog Bibcode

2018APh...100...29A

Bulletin

The CCALSPEC database table was last updated on 6 August 2025.

References

On-orbit operations and offline data processing of CALET onboard the ISS.
    Asaoka Y. et al., 2018, Astrophysical Particle, 100 29a
   =2018APh...100...29A

Provenance

The CALET team in collaboration with DARTS and HEASARC developed the FITS file structure for the calorimeter results and their archive. The data have been published in supplements to a series of papers (see reference parameter), and ingested in FITS format at the HEASARC. The data and the database table are updated periodically to reflect additional data as it becomes available.

Description

The CALET mission is comprised of two detectors: the calorimeter (CCAL) and the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (CGBM; Tori S. and CALET Collaboration, 2017, ICRC, 35, 1092). In addition, there is an autonomous miniature star tracker, the Advance Stellar Compass (ASC), capable of determining the attitude with arcseconds precision to obtain precise determination of the CALET pointing direction.

The calorimeter is an electron telescope also sensitive to hadronic components and has a normal incidence depth of 30 radiation lengths (Xo) from three sub-instruments: the charge detector (CHD), the IMaging Calorimeter (IMC), and the Total AbSorption Calorimeter (TASC). It is sensitive to primary electrons, gamma rays and hadronic flux from 1 GeV to over 10 TeV when the three sub-instruments' results are combined.

The CHD consists of two orthogonal layers of plastic scintillation paddles and determines charge for up to ~40 Z, provides initial charge determination.

The IMC is a sampling calorimeter for measuring early particle shower tracking. It consists of 16 layers of scintillation fibers arranged in alternating orthogonal orientations. Each layer is interspersed with thin tungsten absorbers, providing tracking through the first three radiation lengths.

The TASC is designed to fully absorb the incident particle energy and provide precise energy measurement. It consists of thick lead tungstate logs arranged in 12 layers of alternating X - Y orientation providing an additional 27 radiation lengths of absorption. This segmented design provides spatial information while measuring the total energy from the particle shower with high energy resolution.

Collectively, these sub-systems can measure the flux of a variety of particle species incident on the instrument with high precision over a very wide energy range.

Parameters

Record_ID
This parameter contains the unique identifier for the product number.

Time
The date of the first data included in the collection. For most data sets, this is the start date of science operations (2015-10-13).

End_Time
The date of the last data included in the collection.

Species
The types of particles included in the data collection. In instances where the data contains the ratio of two species, this parameter contains the name of these two species followed by "ratio".

Reference
The ADS bibliographic reference code for the published paper from which the data is derived.

Energy_Min
The minimum energy considered in the spectra (in units of GeV/n or GeV).

Energy_Max
The maximum energy considered in the spectra (in units of GeV/n or GeV).

Product_Flag
This flag indicate the product type of the dataset. It is set to 1 for spectra and 2 for time histogram.

Data_File
The name of the FITS file containing the CCAL data set.

Contact Person

Questions regarding the CCALSPEC database table can be addressed to the HEASARC Help Desk.

Page Author: Browse Software Development Team
Last Modified: Wednesday, 06-Aug-2025 18:39:03 EDT