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Catalog of gamma-ray glows during four winter seasons in Japan

2021; American Physical Society; Volume: 3; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevresearch.3.043117

2643-1564

Yuuki Wada, Tatsuya Matsumoto, Teruaki Enoto, K. Nakazawa, Takayuki Yuasa, Y. Furuta, Daisuke Yonetoku, Tatsuya Sawano, Go Okada, Hidehito Nanto, Syohei Hisadomi, Yoshiyuki Tsuji, Gabriel Diniz, Kazuo Makishima, H. Tsuchiya,

Earthquake Detection and Analysis

In 2015, the Gamma-Ray Observation of Winter Thunderstorms (GROWTH) collaboration launched a mapping observation campaign for high-energy atmospheric phenomena related to thunderstorms and lightning discharges. This campaign has developed a detection network of gamma rays with up to 10 radiation monitors installed in the cities of Kanazawa and Komatsu, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, where low-charge-center winter thunderstorms frequently occur. During four winter seasons from October 2016 to April 2020, a total of 70 gamma-ray glows, i.e., minute-lasting bursts of gamma rays originating from thunderclouds, were detected. Their average duration is 58.9 s. Among the detected events, 77% were observed at night. The gamma-ray glows can be classified into temporally symmetric, temporally asymmetric, and lightning-terminated types based on their count-rate histories. An averaged energy spectrum of the gamma-ray glows is well fitted with a power-law function with an exponential cutoff, whose photon index, cutoff energy, and flux are $0.613\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.009$ MeV, $4.68\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.04$ MeV, and $(1.013\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.003)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}5}$ erg ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}2}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ (0.2--20.0 MeV), respectively. The present paper provides a catalog of gamma-ray glows and their statistical analysis detected during winter thunderstorms in the Kanazawa and Komatsu areas.