On cosmic ray cutoffs

✍ Scribed by Herbert H Sauer; Ernest C Ray

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1963
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 395 KB
• Volume: 25
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-4916
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-4916(63)90349-x

✦ Synopsis

A cosmic ray cutoff in the Stermer sense is defined for sufficiently high latitudes when the magnetic field, while not axially symmetric, becomes approximately so at sufficiently great distances from the earth. It is shown that the cutoff, when so defined, is given by a simple function of McIlwain's L parameter. Numerical comparisons are made with a previous computer study of cutoffs defined in the same way. The expression for cutoff in terms of I, suggests that the cutoff in the direction of the magnetic field should be approximately constant

along a line of force. This is shown numerically to be so at latitudes too low for the derivation of the I, expression to hold, for a particular field model.