The analysis of cosmic ray intensity variation seen by muon detectors at Earthʼs surface can help us to understand astrophysical, solar, interplanetary and geomagnetic phenomena. However, before comparing cosmic ray intensity variations with extraterrestrial phenomena, it is necessary to take into account atmospheric effects such as the temperature effect. In this work, we analyzed this effect on the Global Muon Detector Network (GMDN), which is composed of four ground-based detectors, two in the northern hemisphere and two in the southern hemisphere. In general, we found a higher temperature influence on detectors located in the northern hemisphere. Besides that, we noticed that the seasonal temperature variation observed at the ground and at the altitude of maximum muon production are in antiphase for all GMDN locations (low-latitude regions). In this way, contrary to what is expected in high-latitude regions, the ground muon intensity decrease occurring during summertime would be related to both parts of the temperature effect (the negative and the positive). We analyzed several methods to describe the temperature effect on cosmic ray intensity. We found that the mass weighted method is the one that best reproduces the seasonal cosmic ray variation observed by the GMDN detectors and allows the highest correlation with long-term variation of the cosmic ray intensity seen by neutron monitors.
We report on the analysis of the 10–1000 TeV large-scale sidereal anisotropy of Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) with the data collected by the Tibet Air Shower Array from 1995 October to 2010 February. In this analysis, we improve the energy estimate and extend the decl. range down to −30°. We find that the anisotropy maps above 100 TeV are distinct from that at a multi-TeV band. The so-called tail-in and loss-cone features identified at low energies get less significant, and a new component appears at ∼100 TeV. The spatial distribution of the GCR intensity with an excess (7.2σ pre-trial, 5.2σ post-trial) and a deficit (−5.8σ pre-trial) are observed in the 300 TeV anisotropy map, in close agreement with IceCube’s results at 400 TeV. Combining the Tibet results in the northern sky with IceCube’s results in the southern sky, we establish a full-sky picture of the anisotropy in hundreds of TeV band. We further find that the amplitude of the first order anisotropy increases sharply above ∼100 TeV, indicating a new component of the anisotropy. All these results may shed new light on understanding the origin and propagation of GCRs.
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