The Theory of Cosmic Ray Modulation

Prof Du Toit Strauss completed his PhD in 2013 at the North-West University in South Africa, studying the transport of cosmic rays through the turbulent interplanetary medium using a combination of particle transport and large scale heliospheric MHD models. Since then he has focussed primarily on simulating the transport of solar energetic particles through the inner heliosphere, but has a general interest in the propagation of charged particles through turbulent plasmas (both from a theoretical and simulation perspective). On the experimental side he is leading the South African neutron monitor programme and has initiated a programme to characterize the radiation environment, at aviation altitudes, over Southern Africa. Prof Strauss completed research sabbaticals at the Ruhr University in Germany (funded through an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship) and the University of Alabama in Huntsville in the USA (as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar). He is currently appointed as professor of physics at the North-West University, and holds an affiliated status at the University of Alabama at Huntsville.N. Eugene Engelbrecht is currently a professor in physics at the North-West University, South Africa, where he received his Ph.D. in physics, in which he studied the influence of turbulence on the transport of galactic cosmic rays by combining turbulence transport models with a numerical cosmic ray modulation code through first-principle modeling of these particle's diffusion and drift coefficients. His research interests include modeling cosmic ray transport from first principles (both in the heliosphere and other astrospheres), turbulence and its transport (both theoretical and observational), and the diffusion of charged particles in turbulent plasmas.