Heliospheric modulation strength: effective neutron monitor energy

Abstract

The widely used concept of the neutron monitor energy range is not well defined. Also, the median energy of a neutron monitor varies in the course of the solar cycle. Here we present a new concept of the effective energy of cosmic rays as measured by neutron monitors. Using a spherically-symmetric model of the heliospheric transport of cosmic rays and the specific yield function of a neutron monitor, we show that there is such an effective energy that the count rate of a given neutron monitor is directly proportional to the flux of cosmic rays with energy above this effective energy, irrespectively of the phase of the solar cycle. The new concept of the effective energy allows to regard the neutron monitor count rate as a direct measurement of the galactic cosmic ray flux with energy above this value. The effective energy varies from about 6 GeV for polar up to about 50 GeV for equatorial stations (e.g., it is about 6.5 GeV for high-latitude Oulu, 8 GeV for mid-latitude Climax and 40 GeV for equatorial Huancayo NM).