Particle transport from first principles in the early heliosphere: κ1 Ceti as a case study for the young Sun

Abstract

Several studies of Galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) modulation within the astrospheres of stars deemed to be proxies for the young Sun have concluded that the intensities of these particles would, at early stages of the Sun’s evolution, be negligible at 1 au. These studies, however, do not take into account the varying interstellar conditions the young Sun would have encountered as it traversed its Galactic orbit, nor do they realistically model the transport of GCRs. The present study, for the first time, examines the influence of various interstellar parameters in the Galactic spiral arms on the astrosphere of κ1 Ceti, a young Sun proxy, through magnetohydrodynamic modelling. We demonstrate that these conditions lead to an astrosphere with considerably smaller dimensions than previous estimates. We also model the transport of turbulence parameters within said astrosphere for the first time, demonstrating that turbulence levels could be significantly higher than observed in the heliosphere. Finally, these insights are implemented in a 3D, ab initio GCR transport model to compute GCR intensities at 1 au, demonstrating the importance of drift effects in astrospheric modulation: full drift effects lead to GCR intensities comparable to modern observations, while turbulence-reduced drift coefficients lead to significantly smaller intensities.