Monitoring the upper atmospheric temperature and interplanetary magnetic field with the GRAPES-3 muon telescope

TL;DR

This paper discusses how the GRAPES-3 muon telescope detects variations in galactic cosmic rays caused by solar and interplanetary magnetic phenomena, revealing insights into solar activity and space weather effects.

Contribution

It introduces a method to monitor upper atmospheric temperature and interplanetary magnetic fields using muon flux variations observed by the GRAPES-3 telescope.

Findings

Detection of solar cycle-related variations in GCR flux.

Correlation between muon flux and interplanetary magnetic field changes.

Observation of transient solar events affecting cosmic ray modulation.

Abstract

Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) have to travel through the heliosphere before they interact with the Earth's atmosphere. During this, they are deflected by the Sun's magnetic field, causing variations in this field to imprint on the flux, spectrum and angular distribution of GCRs detected at or near Earth. Studies of these variations over the past several decades have revealed the impact of both transient phenomena such as solar flares, coronal holes, sunspot activity and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) as well as their effects such as Forbush Decreases (FDs), precursors and Ground-Level Enhancements (GLEs). Periodic variations, such as due to the solar diurnal modulation, the 27-day solar rotation, the 11-year solar cycle, and the 22-year solar magnetic cycle have also been characterized. These Sun-induced phenomena are most prominent in GCR intensity variations up to $\sim$30 GeV/nuc, beyond which the influence of solar modulation decreases rapidly as the gyro-radii of GCRs exceed the characteristic size of the heliosphere ($\sim$100 AU).