From electrons to stars : modelling and mitigation of radiation damage effects on astronomical CCDs

The work presented in this thesis is part of an on-going effort to understand and mitigate the effects of radiation damage in astronomical CCDs. My research was motivated by and took place in the challenging context of the European Space Agency__s (ESA) astrometric mission, Gaia, for which radiation damage has been considered since its conception as one of the most important threats to its scientific performance. In this context my research focused primarily on the modelling of the effects of radiation-induced Charge Transfer Inefficiency (CTI) supported by the analysis of the experimental test data. I developed the most detailed model to date of CTI in CCDs that enables simulating the operation of irradiated devices (Chapter 2). Using this model I have been able to verify and enhance our current understanding of CTI as well as support the characterization of CCDs and the understanding of experimental results (Chapters 3 and 6). As part of this research I conducted the comprehensive re-assessment of the performance of Gaia taking into account radiation damage (Chapters 3 and 4). Finally I took part in the effort of countering CTI by elaborating, testing, and improving a forward modelling approach at the image processing level to mitigate the CTI effects on the Gaia easurements (Chapters 3 and 5), as well as test and explore the potential of a specific hardware mitigation tool (Chapter 6).European Marie-Curie research training network ELSA (MRTN-CT-2006-033481)UBL - phd migration 201