M. L. Duldig
, PASA, 18 (1), in press.
Next Section: Ground Level Enhancements
Title/Abstract Page: Australian Cosmic Ray Modulation
Previous Section: Recent Instrumentation
- The Heliosphere
- Heliospheric Neutral Sheet
- Cosmic Ray Transport
- Modulation Model Predictions
- Solar Diurnal Anisotropy
- North-South Anisotropy
- Deriving Modulation Parameters from Observations
Cosmic Ray Modulation
The Heliosphere
The heliosphere is the region of space where the solar wind momentum is sufficiently high that it excludes the interstellar medium. This region is thus dominated by the solar magnetic field carried outward by the solar wind plasma. Galactic cosmic rays beyond this region are considered to be temporally and spatially isotropic, at least over timescales of decades to centuries. It is likely that the heliosphere is not spherical but that it interacts with the interstellar medium as shown schematically in Figure 1.
Heliospheric Neutral Sheet
The expanding solar wind plasma carries with it the IMF. A neutral sheet separates the field into two distinct hemispheres; one above the sheet with the field either emerging from or returning to the Sun and the other below the sheet with the field in the opposite sense. The solar magnetic field is not aligned with the solar rotation axis and is also more complex than a simple dipole. As a result, the neutral sheet is not flat but wavy, rotating with the Sun every 27 days. At solar minimum the waviness of the sheet is limited to about 10o helio-latitude but near solar maximum the extent of the sheet may almost reach the poles. Figure 2 shows an artists impression of the structure of the neutral sheet for relatively quiet solar times.
Cosmic Ray Transport
Early work by Parker (1965) and Gleeson & Axford (1967) paved the way for the theoretical formalism developed by Forman & Gleeson (1975) that describes the cosmic ray density distribution throughout the heliosphere. Isenberg & Jokipii (1979) further developed the treatment of the distribution function. Here we briefly summarize the formalism following Hall et al. (1996). If F(x, p, t) describes the distribution of particles such that
is the number of particles in a volume d3x and momentum range p to p + dp and centred in the solid angle d then Isenberg and Jokipii (1979) showed that
where
and S is the streaming vector:
and , gyro-frequency of the particle's orbit; , mean time between scattering; , diffusion coefficient (isotropic); C, Compton-Getting coefficient (Compton & Getting 1935, Forman 1970);
, unit vector in the direction of the IMF; r, the radial direction in a heliocentric coordinate system; V, solar wind velocity; and U, number density of cosmic ray particles. As already noted, adiabatic cooling is relatively unimportant at the energies observed by ground based systems and so it has not been included in Equation 1. Equation 2 may be considered in several parts. The first term describes the convection of the cosmic ray particles away from the Sun by the solar wind. The second and third terms represent diffusion of the particles in the heliosphere parallel to and perpendicular to the IMF respectively. The last term describes the gradient and curvature drifts. Jokipii (1967, 1971) expressed Equation 2 in terms of a diffusion tensor
Equation 4 is a time dependent diffusion equation known as the transport equation. If we note that
where
refers only to the non-convective terms in Equation 4 and and refer to
being split into symmetric and anti-symmetric tensors, we find that
is the drift velocity, VD, of a charged particle in a magnetic field with a gradient and curvature. Thus Equation 4 is an equation explicitly representing the transport of cosmic rays in the heliosphere by convection, diffusion and drift.
Modulation Model Predictions
The diffusion and convection components of Equation 4 are independent of the solar polarity and will only vary with the solar activity cycle. Conversely, the drift components will have opposite effects in each activity cycle following the field reversals. Jokipii et al. (1977) and Isenberg & Jokipii (1978) investigated the effects of this polarity dependence by numerically solving the transport equation. They showed that the cosmic rays would essentially enter the heliosphere along the helio-equator and exit via the poles in the A<0 polarity state. In the A>0 polarity state the flow would be reversed with particles entering over the poles and exiting along the equator. This is shown schematically in Figure 3 (Duldig 2000). Kota (1979) and Jokipii & Thomas (1981) showed that the neutral sheet would play a more prominent role in the A<0 state when cosmic rays entered the heliosphere along the helio-equator and would interact with the sheet. Because particles enter over the poles in the A>0 state they rarely encounter the neutral sheet on their inward journey and the density is thus relatively unaffected by the neutral sheet in this state. It was clear from the models that there would be a radial gradient in the cosmic ray density and that the gradient would vary with solar activity. Thus the cosmic ray density would exhibit the 11-year solar cycle variation with maximum cosmic ray density at times of solar minimum and minimum cosmic ray density at times of solar maximum activity (and field reversal). Figure 4 shows this anti-correlation from the long record of the Climax neutron monitor (for the data source see http://ulysses.uchicago.edu/NeutronMonitor/Misc/neutron2.html).
Solar Diurnal Anisotropy
Forman & Gleeson (1975) showed that the cosmic ray particles would co-rotate with the IMF. At 1 AU this represents a speed of order 400 km s-1 in the same direction as the Earth's orbital motion (at 30 km s-1). Thus the cosmic rays will overtake the Earth from the direction of 18 hours local time as shown in Figure 6.
where
is ratio of perpendicular to parallel diffusion coefficients that can be shown to be equal to the ratio of perpendicular to parallel mean free paths of the particles. The arrival direction of the anisotropy is also affected by drifts shifting from 18 hours local time in the A<0 polarity state to 15 hours local time in the A>0 state. In Figure 7 we see observations from a number of underground telescopes of the anisotropy. These observations are not corrected for geomagnetic bending so the absolute phases do not generally represent those of the anisotropy in free space. The changes in phase of the anisotropy are, however, readily apparent at the times of solar field reversal. It should also be noted that the Mawson underground north telescope views along the local magnetic field and is not subject to geomagnetic deflections (see Section 3.2 above) and shows the expected free space phases.
North-South Anisotropy
Compton & Getting (1935) analysed ionization chamber data for a sidereal variation and found that the peak of the variation had a phase of about 20 hours local sidereal time. The observations were all made in the northern hemisphere. Clearly an anisotropy existed with a direction fixed relative to the background stars and not to the Sun-Earth line as for the solar diurnal anisotropy. Subsequently, Elliot & Dolbear (1951) analysed southern hemisphere data and found a sidereal diurnal variation 12 hours out of phase from the result of Compton & Getting (1935). Jacklyn (1966) studied the sidereal diurnal variation in underground data collected at Cambridge in Tasmania. He employed two telescopes, one viewing north (into the northern heliospheric hemisphere) and the other vertically (into the southern heliospheric hemisphere). The southern view produced a maximum response at a phase of 6 hours local sidereal time whilst the northern view gave a maximum response phase at 18 hours. Jacklyn (1966) attributed this to a bi-directional streaming (or pitch-angle anisotropy) along the local galactic magnetic field. Swinson (1969) disagreed proposing instead that the anisotropy responsible for the sidereal diurnal variation was IMF sector polarity dependent and directed perpendicular to the ecliptic plane. The streaming of particles perpendicular to the ecliptic had been described by Berkovitch (1970) and Swinson realised that the anisotropy would have a component in the equatorial plane. Figure 9 shows how this North-South anisotropy arises from the gyro-orbits of cosmic ray particles about the IMF. When the Earth is on one side of the neutral sheet (in one sector) there will be a component of the field parallel to the Earth's orbit as shown in the top part of Figure 9. As the neutral sheet rotates, the Earth passes into the next solar sector and this component of the field reverses as in the bottom part of Figure 9. The direction of gyration of cosmic ray particles about the field reverses with the field reversal. Because a radial gradient is present there is a higher density of cosmic rays farther from the Sun. Thus the region of higher density alternately feeds in from the south (top of Figure 9) and then the north (bottom of Figure 9). The lower density of particles on the sunward side of the figure similarly reverse giving rise to a lower flux at the opposite pole. The anisotropy simply arises from a B
x Gr flow where Gr represents the radial gradient of the particles. The flow of particles perpendicular to the helio-equator is not aligned with the Earth's rotation axis.
Deriving Modulation Parameters from Observations
Yasue (1980) and Hall et al. (1994a) have presented a complete description of the derivation of the anisotropy, , the rigidity spectrum and, as a result, the radial density gradient from multiple telescope and neutron monitor measurements of the sidereal variation. Assuming that there is little anisotropy arising from perpendicular diffusion compared with that caused by drifts, they showed that the radial density gradient as a function of rigidity, Gr(P) is where is the gyro-radius of a particle at rigidity P and is the angle of the IMF to the Sun-Earth line (typically 45o).
is a measurement of half the difference between averaged over periods when the Earth is in toward IMF sectors and when the Earth is in away IMF sectors. So it is possible to obtain a measure of the radial gradient at 1 AU directly from measurements of the sector dependent sidereal diurnal variation. In a benchmark paper Bieber & Chen (1991) further developed the cosmic ray modulation theory and showed that
and
are the coupling coefficients that correct the amplitude and phase respectively to the free space values of the anisotropy beyond the effect of the Earth's magnetic field(Yasue et al. 1982; Fujimoto et al. 1984), G(P) is the rigidity spectrum of the anisotropy, (=0.045%) is the orbital doppler effect arising from the motion of the Earth around its orbit, is the Compton-Getting effect arising from the convection of cosmic rays by the solar wind and is the angle of the IMF at the Earth. Forman (1970) showed that =1.5 assuming a solar wind speed of 400 km s-1 whilst Chen & Bieber (1993) used in situ solar wind measurements and found that there was no significant difference from the Forman (1970) approximation. The parameters ASD and tSD are directly derived from observations whilst the spectrum can be deduced from observations by a number of telescopes with differing median rigidities of response. The remaining parameters may be considered constants. It is therefore possible to determine the average annual product of the radial gradient, Gr, and the parallel mean free path . Figures 14 and 15 show determinations of the product for neutron monitors and muon telescopes respectively.
where
All the parameters are directly measured or known except for
. The correct value of has been strongly debated in the literature. Palmer (1982) estimated consensus values of the mean free paths from earlier studies. From his conclusions ranged between about 0.08 at 0.001 GV and 0.02 at 4 GV. Ip et al. (1978) derived a value of 0.260.08 at 0.3 GV and Ahluwalia & Sabbah (1993) estimated it must be <0.09. Bieber & Chen (1991) assumed a value of 0.01 for their study. Hall et al. (1995b) studied the effect of varying on derived modulation parameters. They found that the results were relatively insensitive to values of between 0.01 and 0.1. They also derived upper limits to the value of at various rigidities for both polarity states. In the A<0 state the upper limit was 0.3 for rigidities between 17 GV and 185 GV. In the A>0 state the situation was quite different with an upper limit of about 0.15 at 17 GV and increasing with rigidity to very high values (>0.8) at 185 GV. There appeared to be a strong dependence of the maximum value on the rigidity although this does not guarantee that the actual value is similarly dependent. It would appear that a general consensus would be a value of 0.1 for neutron monitors but that higher rigidity values require further study.
Separating Gr and
In the previous section we saw how the radial gradient, Gr, and the average product of the radial gradient and the parallel mean free path,
could be independently determined from observations of the North-South anisotropy and the solar diurnal anisotropy respectively. If we assume that
then we are able to separate out the parallel mean free paths of cosmic rays near 1 AU with Equations 6 and 7. Chen and Bieber (1993) extended their formalism to show that
Either form of the equation is more accurate than the approximation given in Equation 6 although they introduce the parameter discussed above in relation to the vertical gradient, G|z| (see Section 5.7). The most recent analyses of this type were undertaken by Hall et al. (1995b, 1997). Their results are reproduced in Figures 16 and 17, for 17 GV particles from neutron monitor observations and 185 GV particles from Hobart underground observations respectively.
had a 22-year variation with a smaller 11-year variation superposed, both variations being in phase, resulting in smaller values in the A>0 polarity state. They also found that
had a greater rigidity dependence in the A>0 polarity state. Finally they found that in the range 17-195 GV may be polarity dependent with higher values in the A<0 polarity state and that the polarity dependence was larger at higher rigidities.
The Symmetric Latitude Gradient, G|z|
We have seen that the symmetric latitude gradient G|z| can be deduced from observations of the solar diurnal variation through the application of Equation 8. Bieber & Chen (1991) undertook the first such analysis and assumed a value of = 0.01. The appropriate value of has already been discussed in Section 5.7 above. A positive value of G|z| describes a local maximum in the cosmic ray density at the neutral sheet whilst a negative value represents a local minimum. The results of Bieber & Chen (1991) are reproduced in Figure 18 and clearly show the dependence of G|z| on the polarity state. The bi-directional symmetric latitude gradient does reverse at each solar polarity reversal. We must ignore the shaded periods which are the times when the field was undergoing reversal and was highly disordered. Hall et al. (1997) confirmed Bieber & Chen's results and studied the gradient at higher rigidities, finding the same dependence extended up to at least 185 GV as shown in Figure 19. In fact Ahluwalia (1993, 1994) reports a significant observation of the gradient at 300 GV. The reversal of the gradient is in accordance with drift models. The magnitude of the gradient appears to have its largest values around times of solar minimum activity and may also have slightly lower values during the A>0 polarity state. It should be noted that the results presented in Figures 17 and 18 assumed a constant spectrum for the solar diurnal anisotropy. If the spectrum is allowed to vary then the gradient reversal cannot be confirmed at rigidities above about 50 GV. Next Section: Ground Level Enhancements
Title/Abstract Page: Australian Cosmic Ray Modulation
Previous Section: Recent Instrumentation
© Copyright Astronomical Society of Australia 1997