Space Weather: Prediction with Cosmic Rays

University Of Delaware, Newark DE

Investigators

Abstract

The activities of this proposal are aimed at exploiting the "Forbush decrease", a region of suppressed cosmic ray density located downstream of coronal mass ejection (CME) shock fronts, for the purpose of predicting with a lead time of some 4-8 hours the arrival of a CME at Earth. Muon detectors and neutron monitors will be utilized to detect the loss-cone anisotropy of energetic particles which escape from the "Forbush decrease" plasma. From this information, it is possible to infer useful constraints on the orientation and extent of solar ejecta. The principal efforts will be to close a coverage gap by constructing a full-size muon detector at the Southern Space Observatory, in Sao Martinho, Brazil, and to add features to their website (www.bartol.udel.edu/~neutronm/) giving real-time graphical displays of cosmic ray density gradients, angular anisotropies, and bi-directional flows.