Significance of the turbulent sheath following the interplanetary shocks in producing forbush decreases

Abstract

The physical processes responsible for transient cosmic-ray decreases have been investigated for two types of interplanetary shock events associated with helium enhancement (He-shocks) and those not associated with helium enhancement (non-He-shocks). The Calgary cosmic-ray neutron monitor data and the interplanetary field data have been subjected to a superposed-epoch Chree analysis. The difference in the profiles of the cosmic-ray intensity have been compared with the interplanetary field data and its variance. It is suggested that the turbulence sheath following the shock front is very effective and of major importance for producing cosmic-ray decreases. A simple model has been proposed to explain the observations which show that a Forbush decrease modulating region consists of a shock front associated with a plasma sheath in which the magnetic field is turbulent and the sheath, in turn, is followed by an ejected plasma cloud having ordered structure and high magnetic field strength.