Low energy protons (< 300 keV) can enter the field of view of X-ray space
telescopes, scatter at small incident angles, and deposit energy on the
detector, causing intense background flares at the focal plane or in the most
extreme cases, damaging the X-ray detector. A correct modelization of the
physics process responsible for the grazing angle scattering processes is
mandatory to evaluate the impact of such events on the performance of future
X-ray telescopes as the ESA ATHENA mission. For the first time the Remizovich
model, in the approximation of no energy losses, is implemented top of the
Geant4 release 10.2. Both the new scattering physics and the built-in Coulomb
scattering are used to reproduce the latest experimental results on grazing
angle proton scattering. At 250 keV multiple scattering delivers large proton
angles and it is not consistent with the observation. Among the tested models,
the single scattering seems to better reproduce the scattering efficiency at
the three energies but energy loss obtained at small scattering angles is
significantly lower than the experimental values. In general, the energy losses
obtained in the experiment are higher than what obtained by the simulation. The
experimental data are not completely representative of the soft proton
scattering experienced by current X-ray telescopes because of the lack of
measurements at low energies (< 200 keV) and small reflection angles, so we are
not able to address any of the tested models as the one that can certainly
reproduce the scattering behavior of low energy protons expected for the ATHENA
mission. We can, however, discard multiple scattering as the model able to
reproduce soft proton funneling, and affirm that Coulomb single scattering can
represent, until further measurements, the best approximation of the proton
scattered angular distribution at the exit of X-ray optics.Comment: submitted to Experimental Astronom
