CME evolution and the corresponding Forbush decrease: modelling vs multi-spacecraft observation

Abstract

<p>One of the very common in-situ signatures of ICMEs, as well as other interplanetary transients are Forbush decreases (FDs), i.e. short-term reductions in the galactic cosmic ray (GCR) flux. A two-step FD is often regarded as a textbook example, which presumably owns its specific morphology to the fact that the measuring instrument passed through the ICME head-on, encountering first the shock front (if developed), then the sheath and finally the magnetic structure. The interaction of GCRs and the shock/sheath region as well as CME magnetic structure occurs all the way from Sun to Earth, therefore, FDs are expected to reflect the evolutionary properties of CMEs and their sheaths. We apply modelling to different ICME regions in order to obtain a generic two-step FD profile, which qualitatively agrees with our current observation-based understanding of FDs. We next adapt the models for energy dependence to enable comparison with different GCR measurement instruments (as they measure in different particle energy ranges). We test these modelling efforts against a set of multi-spacecraft observations of the same event.</p>