Heavy Ion Nuclear Reaction Impact on SEE Testing: From Standard to Ultra-high Energies

We perform Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to describe heavy ion (HI) nuclear interactions in a broad energy range (4 MeV/n–150 GeV/n), focusing on the single event effect (SEE) sub-linear energy transfer (LET) impact. Previously retrieved single event latch-up (SEL) experimental data have indicated that standard energy ions (~10 MeV/n) can produce high-LET secondaries through fusion reactions which are expected to strongly influence the SEE cross section in the sub-LET region. Alternatively, interactions of higher energy ions (>100 MeV/n) yield secondaries of a similar LET distribution as from the projectile, for projectile-like fragments, and high-energy proton reactions, for target-like fragments. Hence, the factor of relevance to the sub-LET SEE cross section is correlated to low-energy.