DARK CURRENT-INDUCED IN LARGE CCD ARRAYS BY PROTON-INDUCED ELASTIC REACTIONS AND SINGLE TO MULTIPLE-EVENT SPALLATION REACTIONS

Computer simulations of the non-ionizing energy loss deposited in sens itive volumes as a result of proton-induced spallation reactions agree with analytic models for large sensitive volumes exposed to high flue nce. They predict unique features for small volumes and low-fluence ex posures which are observed in exposures of large arrays of CCD pixels. Calculations of the number of spallation reactions per pixel correlat e with the recently reported relative frequency of switching dark-curr ent states.