A Study of Cosmic Rays Around the Surface of the Heliopause

Voyager 1 (V-1) crossed the heliopause in 2012 August, gathering measurements of particle flux as a function of time. With this data, heliophysicists have observed anisotropy in the flux of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs); following the St. Patrick solar event in 2013 March, they calculated small increases in the flux of higher-energy GCRs as well as linear depletion of GCR flux for particles with energies above approximately 200 MeV as the particles approached perpendicular pitch angles. Given these observations, the motivation for studying this anisotropy is to attempt to explain the lack of gyrating particles outside the heliopause with pitch angles approximately perpendicular to the magnetic field in relation to streaming particles with pitch angles approximately parallel to the magnetic field. In this project, we adapt existing code in order to create a model of the outer surface of the heliopause superimposed with the calculated trajectory of a GCR with respect to a given starting point in the model. The model predicts a magnetic trap in close proximity to the heliopause. Though magnetic traps near the heliopause have been predicted before, there is no observational verification of their existence. Not only will our model help future scientists study the observed anisotropy, but it may be useful for future exploration of questions regarding charged particle behavior in magnetic traps with different geometries.