The second spherical harmonic in the cosmic-ray spatial distribution and the spurious galactic anisotropy

On the basis of data from the Yakutsk underground complex of muon telescope s for 1982-1998, the monthly averaged parameters of the first and second sp herical harmonics in the cosmic-ray distribution are analyzed. The differen ces in the readings between the northern and southern telescopes are used t o eliminate atmospheric effects. It has been found that, due to the diverge nce of the rotation axes of the Sun and the Earth, the parameters of these harmonics undergo changes in the course of the annual revolution, which man ifest themselves as the observed spurious variation in cosmic rays with sid ereal and antisidereal time. The antisidereal variations have a greater amp litude than the sidereal ones. The aim of this work is to gather informatio n about the nature of the sidereal diurnal variation up to energies of 300 GeV and about the parameters of the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field in various polarities of the total solar magnetic field, based on an analysis of the mechanisms of the first and second spherical harmonics of t he spatial cosmic-ray distribution.