With the project we will use measurements of 10Be from ice cores from the Swiss Alps, with high time resolution, to decipher past solar variability. The relevance of such a project to stellar astrophysics was recently exemplified in a study of 14C measurements in annual rings of Japanese cedar trees which show a large rapid increase around AD 775 (Miyake et al. 2012, Science, 486, 240). Such a rapid increase is most likely explained by either a local supernova or a large super flare, but so far we are not aware of any historic documents supporting the existence of either a local supernova or a large super flare. The study therefore highlight one of the goals with our project: To understand the evolution of the distribution of flares on Sun-like stars using observations from i.e. Kepler.

Status:
First paper entitled: "Reconstructing Galactic Cosmic Ray Intensities using the Hysteresis effect during the Last Four Solar Cycles" by Inceoglu, Knudsen & Karoff has been submitted to MNRAS.
Second paper is underway.
We have received grants form the Villum Foundation and the Danish Council for Independent Research (PI: Knudsen) for this project.