Cosmic Rays Induced Background Radiation on Board of Commercial Flights

TL;DR

This study estimates the total cosmic radiation flux experienced during commercial flights by simulating cosmic ray interactions with Earth's atmosphere, considering factors like altitude and geomagnetic effects.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation-based method to quantify cosmic ray flux on aircraft, incorporating geomagnetic and atmospheric effects for specific flight paths.

Findings

Estimated cosmic ray flux during a specific flight route.

Demonstrated the impact of altitude and geomagnetic effects.

Provided a framework for future radiation exposure assessments.

Abstract

The aim of this work is to determine the total integrated flux of cosmic radiation which a commercial aircraft is exposed to along specific flight trajectories. To study the radiation background during a flight and its modulation by effects such as altitude, latitude, exposure time and transient magnetospheric events, we perform simulations based on Magnetocosmics and CORSIKA codes, the former designed to calculate the geomagnetic effects on cosmic rays propagation and the latter allows us to simulate the development of extended air showers in the atmosphere. In this first work, by considering the total flux of cosmic rays from 5 GeV to 1 PeV, we obtained the expected integrated flux of secondary particles on board of a commercial airplane during the Bogot\'a-Buenos Aires trip by point-to-point numerical integration.