English

Galactic Cosmic Ray Sun Shadow during the declining phase of cycle 24 observed by HAWC

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2019-08-21 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Space Physics

Abstract

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) array is sensitive to high energy Cosmic Rays (CR) in the 10\sim 10 to 200\sim 200 TeV energy range, making it possible to construct maps of the so called "Sun Shadow" (SSSS), i. e. of the deficit of CR coming from the direction of the Sun. In this work, we present the variation of the Relative Intensity of the deficit (SSRISS_{RI}) for three years of HAWC observations form 2016 to 2018 in which we found a clear decreasing trend of the (SSRISS_{RI}) over the studied period, corresponding to the declining phase of the solar cycle 24. By comparing the SSRISS_{RI} with the photospheric magnetic field evolution, we show that there is a linear relationship between the SSRISS_{RI} and the median photospheric magnetic field of the Active Region belt (-40^\circ \le lat \le 40^\circ) and a inverse linear relationship with the polar photospheric magnetic field (lat ±\ge \pm 60^\circ). The former relationship is due to the magnetic field causing a deviation of the CR, whereas the latter reflects the change of the heliospheric field topology from multipolar to dipolar configurations. These relationships are valid only when the median magnetic field is lower than 8 G, during the declining and minimum phases of the solar cycle 24. Finally, we show that relativistic charged particles, in the 10 to 200 TeV energy range, are deflected a few degrees.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.07509,
  title  = {Galactic Cosmic Ray Sun Shadow during the declining phase of cycle 24 observed by HAWC},
  author = {Alejandro Lara and Paulina Colin and K. P. Arunbabu and James Ryan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.07509},
  year   = {2019}
}