Positron Annihilation in Thunderstorms
2019; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10619127.2019.1642716
ISSN1931-7336
Autores Tópico(s)Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics
ResumoThe positron, the antiparticle of the electron, was discovered in 1932 by David Anderson when a shower of cosmic rays hit his cloud chamber [1 C. D. Anderson, Phys. Rev. 43 (1933) 491.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]]. Positrons are fundamental particles, which do not appear in our daily life except for human-made situations in particle accelerators or position emission tomography. On the Earth, known natural production sites of positrons are limited only at cosmic-ray air showers or through beta-plus decays of rare isotope potassium-40. However, we recently spotted lightning that generated positrons in the atmosphere [2 T. Enoto et al., Nature 551 (2017) 481.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]]. The new aspect of lightning is opening a new interdisciplinary field of high-energy atmospheric physics [3 J. R. Dwyer et al., Space Sci. Rev. 173 (2012) 133.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]]. In this article, I introduce new scientific perspectives of high-energy phenomena in lightning and thunderclouds; in particular, results from our observation campaign of winter thunderstorms in Japan as illustrated in Figure 1.
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