Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Tsuchiya, H
• Enoto, T
• Iwata, K
• Yamada, S
• Yuasa, T
• Kitaguchi, T
• Kawaharada, M
• Nakazawa, K
• Kokubun, M
• Kato, H
• Okano, M
• Tamagawa, T
• Makishima, K

Titel

Hardening and termination of long-duration γ rays detected prior to lightning

Ist Teil von

• Physical review letters, 2013-07, Vol.111 (1), p.015001-015001, Article 015001

Ort / Verlag

United States

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

PROLA - Physical Review Online Archive

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We report the first observation of 3-30 MeV prolonged gamma-ray emission that was abruptly terminated by lightning. The gamma-ray detection was made during winter thunderstorms on December 30, 2010, by the Gamma-Ray Observation of Winter Thunderclouds experiment carried out in a coastal area along the Sea of Japan. The gamma-ray flux lasted for less than 3 min, continuously hardening closer to the lightning occurrence. The hardening at energies of 3-10 MeV energies was most prominent. The gamma-ray flux abruptly ceased less than 800 ms before the lightning flash that occurred over 5 km away from the experimental site. In addition, we observed a clear difference in the duration of the 3-10 MeV gamma rays and those >10 MeV, suggesting that the area of >10 MeV gamma-ray emission is considerably smaller than that of the lower-energy gamma rays. This work may give a manifestation that a local region emitting prolonged gamma rays connects with a distant region to initiate lightning.