Surface and underground measurements of long-term changes in the cosmic ray solar diurnal variation |
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| Authors: | T Thambyahpillai RD Speller |
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| Institution: | Physics Department, Imperial College, London S.W.7, England |
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| Abstract: | North/south directional telescopes operating at the surface and vertical and inclined telescopes operating at a depth of 60 m.w.e. underground in London have been employed to study changes in the cosmic ray solar diurnal variation over the past few years. In order to extend the study to the low rigidity end of the spectrum, results obtained by the NM64 neutron monitors operating at Deep River and Goose Bay in Canada have also been examined. The surface telescope data require that the full corotation amplitude of 0.59 per cent should have been observed during almost the entire solar cycle with the possible exception of the year 1965 when cosmic ray intensity was a maximum. However, the effective amplitude observed by neutron monitors during most of the solar cycle was only about 0.52 per cent and this reduction has been ascribed to the lower value of the exponent of the energy spectrum which prevails amongst the latitude sensitive primaries. Nevertheless, the upper limiting rigidity was varying during the course of the solar cycle, its value being high when solar activity was high and low when solar activity decreased. During 1965, even though the upper limiting rigidity assumed its lowest value, the free space amplitude was also diminished by a little over 10 per cent. Even though the theory of rigid corotation invoking a purely azimuthal streaming of the cosmic ray gas successfully predicts the free space amplitude, it fails to explain the phase changes observed by both types of monitor and which are quite significant. The underground data require that the component due to atmospheric temperature effects is negligibly small and that throughout the rigidity range covered by the recorder response, there is present an apparent anisotropy due to the orbital motion of the Earth around the Sun. Also the underground data roughly confirm the changes in upper limiting rigidity which were observed by the surface instruments. |
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