OMNIDIRECTIONAL AND VERTICAL FLUXES OF CHARGED-PARTICLES IN THE EARTHS ATMOSPHERE DURING SOLAR PROTON EVENTS

The monitoring of ionizing radiation in the Earth's atmosphere provide s a way to detect solar protons with E = 100-500 MeV at polar latitude s. At certain periods during solar proton events the experimental resu lts may be understood in terms of the energy-dependent anisotropic ang ular distribution of solar protons at the top of the atmosphere. The c alculation of proton trajectories shows that such a distribution could only be formed inside the magnetosphere. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd