Effective dose calculation at flight altitudes with the newly computed yield function

Abstract

An important topic in the field of space weather research is the assessment of the expected exposure of aircrew at flight altitudes due to cosmic rays (CRs), specifically during major solar energetic particle (SEPs) events. The primary cosmic ray particles induce a complicated nuclearelectromagnetic- muon cascade in the Earth atmosphere. The secondary particles form the main source of increased exposure at flight latitudes compared to the sea level. In this work we propose a numerical model for computation of the effective dose at typical commercial flight altitudes. It represents a full chain analysis, namely estimation of the solar particle spectral and angular characteristics from neutron monitor (NM) data and application of the newly computed yield function for the effective dose. The new computed yield functions for conversion of secondary particle flux to dose were obtained on the basis of extensive Monte Carlo simulation of the atmospheric cascade induced by primary protons and alpha particles and subsequent application of recently computed conversion coefficients. A comparison with the reference data is performed. A good agreement is achieved. Several example calculations are demonstrated. An application of the method for assessment of effective dose during several ground level enhancements (GLEs) is shown.