Stopping muon effect and estimation of intracloud electric field

Chilingarian, A.; Hovsepyan, G.; Karapetyan, G.; Zazyan, M.

doi:10.1016/j.astropartphys.2020.102505

Cited by 23 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…While the charge of precipitation particles was not measured in the current observations, the graupels detected during the glows could correspond to ones in the lower layer (Takahashi et al., 1999), as also confirmed for several TGEs reported by Chilingarian et al. (2021).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Meteorological Aspects of Gamma‐Ray Glows in Winter Thunderstorms

Wada

Enoto

Kubo

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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During three winter seasons from November 2016 to March 2019, 11 gamma‐ray glows were detected at a single observation site of our ground‐based gamma‐ray monitoring network in Kanazawa, Japan. These events are analyzed with observations of an X‐band radar network, a ceilometer, a disdrometer, and a weather monitor. All the detected glows were connected to convective high‐reflectivity regions of more than 35 dBZ, developed up to an altitude of >2 km. They were also accompanied by heavy precipitation of graupels. Therefore, graupels in the lower layer of thunderclouds that correspond to high‐reflectivity regions can form strong electric fields producing gamma‐ray glows. Also, these events are compared with a limited sample of nondetection cases, but no significant differences in meteorological conditions were found between detection and nondetection cases in the present study.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Meteorological Aspects of Gamma‐Ray Glows in Winter Thunderstorms

Wada

Enoto

Kubo

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…In Figures 2a2-2c2 and Table 2, we can see that due to the muon stopping effect (see Chilingarian et al, 2021a, and references therein), simultaneously with TGE particles flux enhancement (>10%) we observe depletion of the muon flux (1.7-8%). The significance of the TGE flux enhancement measured in the number of standard deviations from the mean value at fair weather is very large, 12-17σ for the 1-min time series.…”

Section: Four Types Of Ns Electric Field Disturbancesmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…Fluctuations of the 1-min count rate of the "111" coincidences are larger than fluctuations of "100" coincidences. Also, we select for the analysis, the raw TGE events of 2020, the flux enhancement of the largest TGE events we analyze in Chilingarian et al (2021aChilingarian et al ( , 2021c was much larger and muon depletion-much deeper.…”

Section: Four Types Of Ns Electric Field Disturbancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muon Tomography of Charged Structures in the Atmospheric Electric Field

Chilingarian

Hovsepyan

Zazyan

2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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The electric field in the lower part of the thundercloud plays a key role in developing the relativistic runaway electron avalanches (RREAs), which reaching and are registered on the Earth's surface as thunderstorm ground enhancements (TGEs). Different species of cosmic rays, which include electrons, positrons, muons, gamma rays, and neutrons, were directly or nondirectly modulated by the intracloud electric field and comprise multisensory messengers bringing information on the electric fields emerging in the thundercloud. Recently, we used the measurements of the near-surface (NS) electric field, the graupel fall, and the energy spectra of electrons and gamma rays to get insight into the charge structure of the lower dipole and to estimate the maximum electric field in the thundercloud (Chilingarian et al., 2021a(Chilingarian et al., , 2021c. We considered the depletion of the muon flux as an evidence of a large negative electric field in the lower part of the thundercloud, which accelerates electrons downward and initiates electron-gamma ray avalanches. As a basic configuration of the thundercloud charge structure, we accept a classical tripole (Kuettner, 1950). For a normal three-layered tripole, the lower positively charged region (LPCR) has a smaller size and smaller charge than the upper main layers, negatively (MN) and positively charged (MP). However, alternative charge configurations were reported (see Rust et al., 2005, and references therein) inverted polarity dipole (Nag & Rakov, 2012), i.e., charge regions having a positive charge above the negative one in the vertical distribution of charge. Such structures are rare and rather difficult to identify. In the famous work (Nag & Rakov, 2009), authors conclude that the occurrence of pronounced preliminary breakdown (PB) pulse train proves the existence of an unusually large LPCR.We outline two main scenarios (Chilingarian et al., 2020) supporting the origination of the large fluxes of electrons and gamma rays measured by the particle detectors and spectrometers located on the mountain altitudes. The first one is related to the large main negative charge above the detectors site at an altitude of

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“…Large particle detectors and spectrometers operated at Aragats observed 536 TGE events last 12 years, comprising abundant fluxes of electrons, gamma rays, and neutrons. Muons do not multiply in the electric field as electrons; however, electric fields lead to the modernization of their energy spectra and induce a very interesting muon stopping effect, used for the estimation of the maximum energy of the atmospheric electric field [16]. For the estimation of the maximum field, we use the observation of the ever-largest TGE measured at Lomnicky Stit in Slovakia ( [17] by SEVAN European particle detector network [18]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The progress of High-Energy Physics in Atmosphere achieved with the implementation of particle physics and nuclear spectroscopy methods

Chilingarian¹

2021

Proceedings of 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference — PoS(ICRC2021)

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At Aragats research station we are consistently applying methods of particle physics and nuclear spectroscopy for revealing details of the operation of electron accelerators evolving just above our heads in the thunderclouds. The newly emerging field of high-energy physics in the atmosphere (HEPA) needs successive application of experimentation paired with the simulation of physical processes with CORSIKA and GEANT4 packages well established in the high-energy physics community. In addition to the minute-long fluxes of high-energy electrons and gamma rays from relativistic runaway electron avalanches (RREA), we discover also the origin of hour-long isotropic fluxes of low-energy gamma rays from the 222 Rn progeny gamma radiation. During 12 years of 24/7 monitoring of cosmic ray fluxes, we observed more than half-of-thousand thunderstorm ground enhancements (TGEs). Each cosmic-ray species brings its own special evidence on the structure and strength of the atmospheric electric field. The depletion of muon flux (muon stopping effect) observed simultaneously with the world's largest-ever enhancement of electron and gamma rays' flux at Mt. Lomnicky Stit allows us to estimate the maximum value of the atmospheric electric field. Using a high-precision spectrometer for the measurement of the energy spectra of the natural gamma radiation we discovered a new effect of circulation of radon progeny during thunderstorms. The comparison of electron and gamma ray energy spectra allows us to identify the emerging electrical structures in the atmosphere which makes it possible to accelerate seed electrons from the ambient population of cosmic rays up to ≈100 MeV. Measuring simultaneously neutron and gamma ray fluxes by a neutron monitor and SEVAN hybrid particle detector we prove the photonuclear origin of the atmospheric neutrons.

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Stopping muon effect and estimation of intracloud electric field

Cited by 23 publications

References 40 publications

Meteorological Aspects of Gamma‐Ray Glows in Winter Thunderstorms

Meteorological Aspects of Gamma‐Ray Glows in Winter Thunderstorms

Muon Tomography of Charged Structures in the Atmospheric Electric Field

The progress of High-Energy Physics in Atmosphere achieved with the implementation of particle physics and nuclear spectroscopy methods

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