Temporal and energy behavior of cosmic ray fluxes in the periods of low solar activity
Modulation of galactic cosmic ray intensity is governed by several mechanisms including diffusion, convection, adiabatic energy losses and drift. Relative roles of these factors change in the course of an 11-year solar cycle. That can result in the changes in the energy dependence of the 11-year cosmic ray modulation. The minimum between the solar cycles 23 and 24 was extremely deep and long-lasting which led to the record high cosmic ray fluxes low-energy particles dominating. This was a signature of unusually soft energy spectrum of the cosmic rays. In this work we examine the energy dependence of the 11-year modulation during the last three solar cycles and argue that a soft energy spectrum was observed in the minimum of each cycle however only for particles below of energy around 10 GeV. From mid 1980s the energy dependence of cosmic rays became softer from minimum to minimum of solar activity. The work is based on the cosmic ray data of the spacecraft, balloon-borne and the ground-based observations.