1,2,3,4,1,4,5,6,3,1,2- 1Laboratory for Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics (LIP), 1649-003 Lisboa, Portugal
- 2Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
- 3European Space Agency (ESA), European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, 28692 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain
- 4Universidad de Alcalá, Space Research Group (SRG-UAH), Plaza de San Diego s/n, 28801 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain
- 5Institut für Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik, University of Kiel, Leibnizstrasse 11, 24118 Kiel, Germany
- 6European Space Research and Technology Centre, European Space Agency, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands
The BepiColombo Environmental Radiation Monitor (BERM), currently travelling toward Mercury, and the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) aboard Solar Orbiter are both monitoring the radiation environment in the inner heliosphere. Three Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events, 2021-07-15, 2022-07-23 and 2023-03-13 were detected simultaneously by the two missions during intervals of favourable magnetic connectivity, providing valuable cases for comparative analysis and instrument intercalibration.
We investigated the interplanetary conditions of each event using solar wind plasma and magnetic field observations. Proton anisotropy measurements from Solar Orbiter enabled the identification of isotropic periods during the decay phase of the SEP events, from which representative proton spectra were derived. These spectra were then fitted and compared with BERM observations to obtain intercalibration factors.
Our results confirm a high level of agreement between the instruments. For the 2.15 MeV and 6.85 MeV proton channels, we obtained calibration factors of 0.95±0.10 and 1.02±0.30, corresponding to deviations of only 5% and 2%. These findings demonstrate the consistency of SEP measurements by BERM and EPD and highlight the valuable role that planetary missions can play in heliophysics research.
How to cite: Gomes, A., Rodríguez-García, L., Pinto, M., Gómez-Herrero, R., Rodríguez-Pacheco, J., Wimmer-Schweingruber, R., Jones, G., Besse, S., and Gonçalves, P.: Intercalibration between energetic particle instruments BERM onboard BepiColombo and EPD aboard Solar Orbiter, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-723, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-723, 2026.
