14
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      On the initiation of lightning in thunderclouds

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          The relationship of lightning and elementary particle fluxes in the thunderclouds is not fully understood to date. Using the particle beams (the so-called Thunderstorm Ground Enhancements – TGEs) as a probe we investigate the characteristics of the interrelated atmospheric processes. The well-known effect of the TGE dynamics is the abrupt termination of the particle flux by the lightning flash. With new precise electronics, we can see that particle flux decline occurred simultaneously with the rearranging of the charge centers in the cloud. The analysis of the TGE energy spectra before and after the lightning demonstrates that the high-energy part of the TGE energy spectra disappeared just after lightning. The decline of particle flux coincides on millisecond time scale with first atmospheric discharges and we can conclude that Relativistic Runaway Electron Avalanches (RREA) in the thundercloud assist initiation of the negative cloud to ground lightning. Thus, RREA can provide enough ionization to play a significant role in the unleashing of the lightning flash.

          Related collections

          Most cited references19

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          A fundamental limit on electric fields in air

          J Dwyer (2003)
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            The physics of lightning

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: not found
              • Article: not found

              The Acceleration of β-particles in Strong Electric Fields such as those of Thunderclouds

                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                chili@aragats.am
                Journal
                Sci Rep
                Sci Rep
                Scientific Reports
                Nature Publishing Group UK (London )
                2045-2322
                2 May 2017
                2 May 2017
                2017
                : 7
                : 1371
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Yerevan Physics Institute, 2 Alikhanyan Brothers, 0036 Yerevan, Armenia
                [2 ]ISNI 0000 0000 8868 5198, GRID grid.183446.c, , National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute), ; Moscow, 115409 Russian Federation
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2018-9715
                Article
                1288
                10.1038/s41598-017-01288-0
                5430999
                28465545
                16650ea2-2976-4570-aeb0-9527029f259f
                © The Author(s) 2017

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                History
                : 25 January 2017
                : 23 March 2017
                Categories
                Article
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2017

                Uncategorized
                Uncategorized

                Comments

                Comment on this article