Citizen science observation of a gamma-ray glow associated with the initiation of a lightning flash

Autor: Miwa Tsurumi, Teruaki Enoto, Yuko Ikkatai, Ting Wu, Daohong Wang, Taro Shinoda, Kazuhiro Nakazawa, Naoki Tsuji, Gabriel Sousa Diniz, Jun Kataoka, Nanase Koshikawa, Ryoji Iwashita, Masashi Kamogawa, Toru Takagaki, Shoko Miyake, Dai Tomioka, Takeshi Morimoto, Yoshitaka Nakamura, Harufumi Tsuchiya
Rok vydání: 2023
DOI: 10.22541/essoar.167979658.80789253/v1
Popis: Gamma-ray glows are observational evidence of relativistic electron acceleration due to the electric field in thunderclouds. However, it is yet to be understood whether such relativistic electrons contribute to the initiation of lightning discharges. To tackle this question, we started the citizen science “Thundercloud Project’, where we map radiation measurements of glows from winter thunderclouds along Japan sea coast area. We developed and deployed 58 compact gamma-ray monitors at the end of 2021. On 30 December 2021, five monitors simultaneously detected a glow with its radiation distribution horizontally extending for 2 km.The glow terminated coinciding with a lightning flash at 04:08:34 JST, which was recorded by the two radio-band lightning mapping systems, FALMA and DALMA. The initial discharges during the preliminary breakdown started above the glow, i.e., in vicinity of the electron acceleration site. This result provides one example of possible connections between electron acceleration and lightning initiation.
Databáze: OpenAIRE