Auroral X-ray emission

Executive summary: The amount of auroral X-ray emission in the PoGOLite energy band has been estimated using data from an Antarctic balloon flight in 2000. It is noted that this flight took place during solar maximum conditions and so represents a worse-case compared to the expected flight of PoGOLite in 2009. Auroral emission exceeding a few 10’s of mCrab is expected for approximately 5-10 % of the flight time, within the auroral zone. Typical PoGO-Lite observational targets range from 200 to 1000 mCrab. Outside this zone the auroral sky coverage is of course lower, whereby its emission can be avoided by appropriate choice of targets. It is proposed to monitor the in-flight auroral activity in a number of independent ways: using flight magnetometer data (and global indices and observatory networks), visual observation using star trackers and/or a budget wide field camera, and auroral photometers, and singles counting rates in the BGO anticoincidence systems. We note that polarisation data which is vetoed using such techniques will be of great interest to the aurora community. 1