Electric and Magnetic Effects of Cosmic Rays

Abstract

It is found that slow interstellar electrons moving in the vicinity of the earth under the influence of a radial electric field caused by the earth's interception of cosmic rays as charged particles predominantly of one sign and the magnetic field of the earth's dipole will produce a continuous series of shell currents concentric with the earth. The current density in the shells varies with the inverse fifth power of the distance from the earth's center and the cosine of the latitude. These currents contribute to the earth's field a uniform component parallel to the magnetic axis in a direction from south to north. It is found that if either cosmic-ray intensity or the density of positive ions in the vicinity of the earth varies, there will result a variation in magnetic field intensity at the earth's surface. It is shown that the ratio $\frac{(\frac{\ensuremath{\Delta}I}{I})}{(\frac{\ensuremath{\Delta}H}{H})}$, where $I$ represents cosmic-ray intensity and $H$ the horizontal component of the earth's magnetic field intensity, for a variation caused by a change in cosmic-ray intensity is of the same order of magnitude as observed experimentally.