Ground-based observations of thunderstorm-correlated fluxes of high-energy electrons, gamma rays, and neutrons
- 23 August 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review D
- Vol. 82 (4)
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.82.043009
Abstract
The Aragats Space Environmental Center facilities continuously measure fluxes of neutral and charged secondary cosmic ray incidents on the Earth's surface. Since 2003 in the 1-minute time series we have detected more than 100 enhancements in the electron, gamma ray, and neutron fluxes correlated with thunderstorm activities. During the periods of the count rate enhancements, lasting tens of minutes, millions of additional particles were detected. Based on the largest particle event of September~19, 2009, we show that our measurements support the existence of long-lasting particle multiplication and acceleration mechanisms in the thunderstorm atmosphere. For the first time we present the energy spectra of electrons and gamma rays from the particle avalanches produced in the thunderstorm atmosphere, reaching the Earth's surface.This publication has 40 references indexed in Scilit:
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