Extensive air showers, lightning, and thunderstorm ground enhancements

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• 作者：A. Chilingarian^a ; ^b ; ^{chili@aragats.am" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; G. Hovsepyan^a ; L. Kozliner^a
• 关键词：Lightning ; Atmospheric electricity ; Thunderstorm ground enhancements ; Extensive air showers
• 刊名：Astroparticle Physics
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：September 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：82
• 期：Complete
• 页码：21-35
• 全文大小：6541 K

文摘

For lightning research, we monitor particle fluxes from thunderclouds, the so-called thunderstorm ground enhancements (TGEs) initiated by runaway electrons, and extensive air showers (EASs) originating from high-energy protons or fully stripped nuclei that enter the Earth's atmosphere. We also monitor the near-surface electric field and atmospheric discharges using a network of electric field mills.

The Aragats “electron accelerator” produced several TGEs and lightning events in the spring of 2015. Using 1-s time series, we investigated the relationship between lightning and particle fluxes. Lightning flashes often terminated the particle flux; in particular, during some TGEs, lightning events would terminate the particle flux thrice after successive recovery. It was postulated that a lightning terminates a particle flux mostly in the beginning of a TGE or in its decay phase; however, we observed two events (19 October 2013 and 20 April 2015) when the huge particle flux was terminated just at the peak of its development. We discuss the possibility of a huge EAS facilitating lightning leader to find its path to the ground.