Influence of solar heliospheric parameters on cosmic rays anisotropy

In the present work the cosmic ray data of three different neutron monitoring stations, Deep River, Inuvik, and Tokyo, located at different geomagnetic cutoff rigidities and altitudes have been harmonically analyzed for the period 1980–95 for a comparative study of diurnal semi-diurnal and tri-diurnal anisotropies in cosmic ray intensity in connection with the change in interplanetary magnetic field Bz component and solar wind velocity on 60 quietest days. It is observed that the amplitudes of all the three harmonics increase during the period 1982–84 at all the stations during the high speed solar wind stream epoch and remain low during the declining phase of the stream. The amplitudes of the three harmonics have no obvious characteristics associated with the time variation of magnitude of the Bz component. The phases of all the three harmonics have no time variation characteristics associated with solar wind velocity and Bz. Published in Astrofizika, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 651–664 (August 2006).     

Interplanetary turbulences causing unusual anisotropic wave trains in cosmic rays

The various observed harmonics of the cosmic ray variation may be understood on a unified basis if the free space cosmic ray anisotropy is non-sinusoidal in form. The major objective of this paper is to study the first three harmonics of high amplitude wave trains of cosmic ray intensity over the period 1991–1994 for Deep River Neutron Monitoring Station. The main characteristic of these events is that the high amplitude wave trains shows a maximum intensity of diurnal component in a direction earlier than 1800 Hr/co-rotational direction. It is noticed that these events are not caused either by the high-speed solar wind streams or by the sources on the Sun responsible for producing these streams such as polar coronal holes. The direction of semi-diurnal anisotropy shows negative correlation with Bz. The occurrence of high amplitude events is dominant for the positive polarity of Bz component of IMF. The diurnal amplitude of these events shows a negative and the time of maximum shows a weak correlation with disturbance storm time index Dst. The direction of tri-diurnal anisotropy of these events is found to significantly correlate with geomagnetic activity index Ap.     

Low amplitude anisotropic wave trains in cosmic rays

In the present study the occurrence of an unusual class of low amplitude anisotropic wave trains in the cosmic ray neutron intensity, which is distinctly different from the average diurnal variation as well as from other recognized types of low amplitude anisotropic wave trains are noted and the directional distribution in the interplanetary space determined. The major objective of this paper is to study the first three harmonics of low amplitude anisotropic wave trains of cosmic ray intensity over the period 1981–1994 for Deep River neutron monitoring station. The significant characteristic of these events is that the low amplitude wave trains shows a maximum intensity of diurnal component in a direction earlier than 18:00 h/co-rotational direction. It is noticed that these events are not caused either by the high-speed solar wind streams or by the sources on the Sun responsible for producing these streams such as polar coronal holes. However the possibility of occurrence of these events during high-speed solar wind streams cannot be denied. The occurrence of low amplitude events is dominant for positive polarity of B_z. The disturbance storm time index i.e. D_st, remains consistently negative only for majority of the low amplitude wave train events, which is never been reported earlier. The amplitude as well as direction of first two harmonics seems to remain unaffected with the variation in the D_st and A_p-index. However, the amplitude as well as direction of third harmonic found to deviates with the increase of D_st and A_p-index. The corotating streams produce significant deviations in cosmic ray intensity as well as in solar wind speed during low amplitude anisotropic wave train events.     

Harmonics of high-amplitude wave trains in cosmic ray intensity

Using the ground based neutron monitor data of Deep River, the high-amplitude anisotropic wave train events (HAE) in cosmic ray intensity have been investigated during the period 1991-1994. It has been observed that the phase of diurnal anisotropy for majority of HAE shifts towards later hours; whereas it remains in the corotational/18-h direction for some of the HAE cases. Further, for majority of HAE cases the amplitude of diurnal and semi-diurnal anisotropy significantly deviates from the annual average values. The phase of semi-diurnal and tri-diurnal anisotropy for all HAE cases has shifted to later hours. Furthermore, for tri-diurnal anisotropy the amplitude remains statistically the same. The occurrence of HAE is unaffected by the nature of the B_z component of IMF polarity.     

Search for point-like sources of cosmic rays with energies above 10 eV in the HiRes-I monocular data set

We report the results of a search for point-like deviations from isotropy in the arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays in the northern hemisphere. In the monocular data set collected by the High-Resolution Fly’s Eye, consisting of 1525 events with energy exceeding 10^18.5 eV, we find no evidence for point-like excesses. We place a 90% c.l. upper limit of 0.8 hadronic cosmic rays/km² yr on the flux from such sources for the northern hemisphere and place tighter limits as a function of position in the sky.     

Effects of hysteresis in solar cycle variations between flare index and cosmic rays

We study the hysteresis effect between the solar flare index and cosmic ray intensity for the past 37 years from January 1, 1965 to December 31, 2001 on a daily basis. We show that smoothed time series of flare index and the daily Calgary Galactic Cosmic Ray intensity values exhibit significant solar cycle dependent differences in their relative variations during the studied period. The shapes of these differences vary from cycle to cycle. So we investigate the momentary time lags between the two time series for the odd and even cycles.     

Contribution of nuclei accelerated by gamma-ray pulsars to cosmic rays in the Galaxy

We consider the galactic population of gamma-ray pulsars as possible sources of cosmic rays at and just above the “knee” in the observed cosmic ray spectrum at 10¹⁵–10¹⁶ eV. We suggest that iron nuclei may be accelerated in the outer gaps of pulsars, and then suffer partial photo-disintegration in the non-thermal radiation fields of the outer gaps. As a result, protons, neutrons, and surviving heavier nuclei are injected into the expanding supernova remnant. We compute the spectra of nuclei escaping from supernova remnants into the interstellar medium, taking into account the observed population of radio pulsars.

Our calculations, which include a realistic model for acceleration and propagation of nuclei in pulsar magnetospheres and supernova remnants, predict that heavy nuclei accelerated directly by gamma-ray pulsars could contribute about 20% of the observed cosmic rays in the knee region. Such a contribution of heavy nuclei to the cosmic ray spectrum at the knee can significantly increase the average value of lnA with increasing energy as is suggested by recent observations.     

The dynamical coupling of cosmic rays and magnetic field in galactic disks

In this paper we demonstrate the importance of cosmic rays for the dynamics of the interstellar medium. We present the first 3D-MHD numerical simulations of the Parker instability triggered by cosmic rays accelerated in supernova remnants. We show that in the presence of galactic rotation a net radial magnetic field is produced as a result of the cosmic ray injection. This process provides a very efficient magnetic field amplification within the general frame of so called fast galactic dynamo proposed by Parker (1992). This revised version was published online in September 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Using spherical wavelets to search for magnetically-induced alignment in the arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays

Due to the action of the intervening cosmic magnetic fields, ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) can be deflected in such a way as to create clustered energy-ordered filamentary structures in the arrival direction of these particles, the so-called multiplets. In this work we propose a new method based on the spherical wavelet transform to identify multiplets in sky maps containing arrival directions of UHECRs. The method is illustrated in simulations with a multiplet embedded in isotropic backgrounds with different numbers of events. The efficiency of the algorithm is assessed through the calculation of Type I and II errors.     

The Latitudinal Effect of Corotating Interaction Regions on Galactic Cosmic Rays

The response of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) to an isolated enhancement of the non-axisymmetric component of the solar open magnetic field between June and November 1996 is investigated by using a combination of solar observations and numerical modelling of the interplanetary medium. The most obvious coronal hole visible from Earth at the time had little shielding effect on the flux of GCRs, as measured at Earth by neutron monitors. It is found that the evolution of the corotating interaction regions generated by a less obvious coronal hole was the principal controlling factor. Moreover, we demonstrate the imprint of the latitudinal and longitudinal evolution of that coronal hole on the variation of GCRs. The latitudinal extent of this solar minimum corotating interaction region had a determining, but local, shielding effect on GCRs, confirming previous modelling results.     

On the propagation of hydromagnetic waves in a plasma of thermal and suprathermal components

The propagation of MHD waves is studied when two ideal fluids, thermal and suprathermal gases, coupled by magnetic field are moving with the steady flow velocity. The fluids move independently in a direction perpendicular to the magnetic field but gets coupled along the field. Due to the presence of flow in suprathermal and thermal fluids there appears forward and backward waves. All the forward and backward modes propagate in such a way that their rate of change of phase speed with the thermal Mach number is same. It is also found that besides the usual hydromagnetic modes there appears a suprathermal mode which propagates with faster speed. Surface waves are also examined on an interface formed with composite plasma (suprathermal and thermal gases) on one side and the other is a non-magnetized plasma. In this case, the modes obtained are two or three depending on whether the sound velocity in thermal gas is equal to or greater than the sound velocity in suprathermal gas. The results lead to the conclusion that the interaction of thermal and suprathermal components may lead to the occurrence of an additional mode called suprathermal mode whose phase velocity is higher than all the other modes.     

Analysis on the interplanetary causes of the great magnetic storms in solar maximum (2000-2001)

In this paper, we analyze the interplanetary causes of eight great geomagnetic storms during the solar maximum (2000-2001). The result shows that the interplanetary causes were the intense southward magnetic field and the notable characteristic among the causal mechanism is compression. Six of eight great geomagnetic storms were associated with the compression of southward magnetic field, which can be classified into (1) the compression between ICMEs (2) the compression between ICMEs and interplanetary medium. It suggests that the compressed magnetic field would be more geoeffective. At the same time, we also find that half of all great storms were related to successive halo CMEs, most of which originated from the same active region. The interactions between successive halo CMEs usually can lead to greater geoeffectiveness by enhancing their southward field B_s interval either in the sheath region of the ejecta or within magnetic clouds (MCs). The types of them included: the compression between the fast speed transient flow and the slow speed background flow, the multiple MCs, besides shock compression. Further, the linear fit of the D_st versus gives the weights of and Δt as α=2.51 and β=0.75, respectively. This may suggest that the compression mechanism, with associated intense B_s, rather than duration, is the main factor in causing a great geomagnetic storm.     

Search for nonpotential features in the magnetic field of the solar active region SD 135 on 1984 June 4

Wir untersuchten die Struktur des Magnetfeldes in der relativ kleinen und einfachen solaren aktiven Region SD 135/1984 in der frühen, relativ ruhigen Phase am 24. Juni. Für diese Arbeit nutzten wir die Daten des Vektormagnetografen des SibIZMIR und Resultate von Modellrechnungen in der stromfreien Näherung. Wir haben das gemessene Magnetfeld mit dem Transversal-Feld der Modellrechnung verglichen. Wir konnten keinen signifikanten Nonpotential-Effekt größer als im Niveau der Sensitivität des Transversal-Magnetfeldes B_T 200 G finden. Wir schluß-folgern daher, daß die globale Magnetfeldstruktur in der untersuchten solaren aktiven Region nahezu eine Potentialstruktur besaß. Die Effekte der Entwicklung der aktiven Region auf die Magnetfeldstruktur scheinen vernachlässigbar zu sein.