On the terrestrial gamma-ray flashes preceding narrow bipolar events

Lu, Gaopeng and Zhang, Hongbo and Qie, Xiushu and Xian, Tao and Yang, Jing and Liu, Feifan and Zhu, Baoyou and Lyu, Fanchao and Xiong, Shaolin and Yi, Qibin and Ahmad, Mohd Riduan and Li, Dongshuai and Pu, Yunjiao and Cummer, Steven A. and Briggs, Michael S. (2021) On the terrestrial gamma-ray flashes preceding narrow bipolar events. Geophysical Research Letters, 48 (8). pp. 1-12. ISSN 0094-8276

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Abstract

Narrow bipolar events (NBEs) are occasionally reported to occur within a few ms after Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs), while the formation mechanism remains mysterious partially due to the lack of sufficient observations. Here, nine more TGFs of this scenario are reported with concurrent LF sferics and lightning location data. The gamma-ray production in these TGFs preceded the occurrence of NBEs by a minimum of 60 µs up to 13.5 ms, and no other fast leader discharge was found within 20 ms before the TGF. The TGF-preceded positive NBEs occurred at altitudes of 8.6–11 km in thunderstorms, likely in the high electric field (E-field) region of lightning initiation. The analyses show that the NBE-preceding TGFs bear harder energy spectrum with larger proportion of high-energy photons than EIP-related TGFs produced in association with lightning leader. Our findings support the relativistic feedback mechanism of gamma-ray generation in the large-scale thunderstorm E-field.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Low-frequency magnetic sferics, Narrow bipolar events (NBEs), Relativistic feedback mechanism, Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs)
Divisions:	Faculty of Electronics and Computer Engineering
Depositing User:	Sabariah Ismail
Date Deposited:	13 Apr 2022 10:58
Last Modified:	02 Jun 2023 12:49
URI:	http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/25832
Statistic Details:	View Download Statistic

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