Cosmic ray and solar energetic particle flux in paleomagnetospheres

Abstract

The geomagnetic field is part of the shield prohibiting energetic particles of solar and cosmic origin directly hitting the Earth surface. During geomagnetic polarity transitions the geomagnetic field strength significantly decreases with energetic particles having a much better access to the atmosphere and surface. To study in more detail the flux of energetic particles into the paleomagnetosphere we use a potential field approach to model the paleomagnetosphere which generalizes the parametric model of Voigt (1981) by taking into account a non-zero quadrupole moment of the core field. We study in particular the quadrupolar situation as a geomagnetic polarity transition is also characterized by a significant increase of non-dipolar contributions. Our model is used as a tool for tracing particle trajectories in such paleomagnetospheres and to assess variations of high-energy particle fluxes into the atmosphere. As a first application of the particle tracing scheme we determine cutoff latitudes and impact areas for different paleomagnetospheric configurations. For configurations with equivalent magnetic field strength or magnetic energy the impact area is very similar.