Evaluation of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field Strength Using the Cosmic-Ray Shadow of the Sun

Phys Rev Lett. 2018 Jan 19;120(3):031101. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.031101.

Abstract

We analyze the Sun's shadow observed with the Tibet-III air shower array and find that the shadow's center deviates northward (southward) from the optical solar disk center in the "away" ("toward") interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) sector. By comparing with numerical simulations based on the solar magnetic field model, we find that the average IMF strength in the away (toward) sector is 1.54±0.21_{stat}±0.20_{syst} (1.62±0.15_{stat}±0.22_{syst}) times larger than the model prediction. These demonstrate that the observed Sun's shadow is a useful tool for the quantitative evaluation of the average solar magnetic field.