Manifestation of solar wind corotating interaction regions in GCR intensity variations

Abstract

The regions of interaction between solar wind streams of different speed, known as corotating interaction regions, form an almost constantly existing structure of the inner heliosphere. Using observational data on the main characteristics of the heliosphere, important for GCR modulation, and the results of 3D MHD modeling of corotating interaction regions, and Monte Carlo simulation of recurrent GCR variations, we analyze the importance of the corotating interaction regions for longitude-averaged characteristics of the heliosphere and GCR propagation, and possible ways for simulating long-term GCR intensity variations with respect to the corotating interaction regions.

Keywords

• heliosphere
• corotating interaction regions
• galactic cosmic rays
• gcr modulation
• long-term gcr variations
• 27-day gcr intensity variation
• mhd approximation
• monte carlo method