Variation with solar cycle of the diurnal variation of cosmic rays underground

Abstract

The cosmic-ray diurnal variation has been observed with scintillator telescopes at a depth of 40 m.w.e. at Chacaltaya, Bolivia, since the last solar maximum, and at the same depth near Albuquerque, New Mexico, since the last solar minimum. During the solar maximum from 1958 to 1960 the amplitude of the diurnal variation was 0.3% for the Chacaltaya telescopes, but at solar minimum early in 1965 it was as low as 0.05%. Since that time, the amplitude has been steadily increasing, and it is now between 0.1% and 0.2% at both the Bolivia and the New Mexico stations.The telescopes measure the cosmic-ray flux from the north, south, east, and west directions, as well as from the vertical; and the various observed times of the diurnal maximum for these directions confirm the extraterrestrial nature of the anisotropy. The maximum occurs at approximately 15 h local solar time in the vertical telescopes. A study of the asymptotic directions of these telescopes for differing primary energies, and of the behavior of the phases of the diurnal variation at the two stations, gives indications of the energies of the primary particles responsible for the diurnal variation. The results are compared with the models of Axford and of Ahluwalia and Dessler.