Fluctuations in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays before the geomagnetic storm on August 25-26, 2018

This paper investigates the dynamics of galactic cosmic ray intensity fluctuations during a strong geomagnetic storm on 25-26 August 2018 in order to establish methods for predicting negative space weather manifestations. Cosmic ray intensity fluctuations are quasi-periodic variations with periods of less than 3 hours, which occur episodically in interplanetary space during large-scale disturbances of the solar wind. These disturbances are due to the propagation in space of interplanetary shock waves, coronal mass ejections and high-speed solar wind flows, which largely determine space weather. The analysis involved 1-minute pressure-corrected measurement data from neutron monitors at the Tiksi Bay and Yakutsk cosmic ray stations, as well as 1-minute data from direct measurements of the interplanetary magnetic field, solar wind density and speed onboard the WIND spacecraft. As a result, it was found that immediately before the start of the storm, fast magnetosonic waves of significant amplitude were observed in the inertial section of the solar wind turbulence spectra in the frequency range ~10-4 ÷ 8.33·10-3 Hz. It is assumed that these waves were generated in the region of interaction between slow and fast solar wind streams, which caused this geomagnetic storm. At the same time, the galactic cosmic ray flux was subject to modulation by fast magnetosonic waves. This manifested in measurements of neutron monitors as the registration of significant coherent galactic cosmic ray intensity fluctuations more than a day before the onset of a geomagnetic storm. The obtained results indicate the possibility of real-time short-term prediction of the onset of strong geomagnetic storms using data measured by cosmic ray stations.

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