Statistical Investigations of Solar Neutron Events on the Basis of Ground Observations

Abstract

For many weak solar neutron events, the statistical errors inherent in neutron monitors and supermonitors are so big relative to the expected amplitudes as to make it impossible to study individual cases. Data averaging for many events, using some statistical methods (the superposed epoch method, for example), gives the possibility of a decrease in this error sufficient enough to determine some average effects for many solar neutron events. The first attempts at this method were made many years ago – before the discovery of solar neutrons, in fact – on the basis of 1-h data (see Section 1.4). Positive results, however, were only obtained later by using 5-min data.