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土屋 晴文; 日比野 欣也*; 川田 和正*; 大西 宗博*; 瀧田 正人*; 宗像 一起*; 加藤 千尋*; 霜田 進*; Shi, Q.*; Wang, S.*; et al.
Progress of Earth and Planetary Science (Internet), 11, p.26_1 - 26_14, 2024/05
From 1998 to 2017, neutron monitors located at an altitude of 4300 m on the Tibetan plateau detected 127 long-duration bursts of high-energy radiation in association with thunderclouds. These bursts typically lasted for 10-40 min, and 89% of them occurred between 10:00 and 24:00 local time. They were also found to be more likely to occur at night, especially during 18:00-06:00 local time period. The observed diurnal and seasonal variations in burst frequency were consistent with the frequencies of lightning and precipitation on the Tibetan plateau. Based on 19 years of data, the present study suggests that an annual variation in burst frequency has a periodicity of 
16 years and a lag of 3 years relative to solar activity.
和田 有希*; Wu, T.*; Wang, D.*; 榎戸 輝揚*; 中澤 知洋*; 森本 健志*; 中村 佳敬*; 篠田 太郎*; 土屋 晴文
Journal of Geophysical Research; Atmospheres, 128(15), p.e2023JD038606_1 - e2023JD038606_9, 2023/08
被引用回数：1 パーセンタイル：52.84(Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences)A gamma-ray glow, a minute-lasting burst of high-energy photons from a thundercloud, was detected by ground-based apparatus at Kanazawa University, Japan, in a winter thunderstorm on 18 December 2018. The gamma-ray glow was quenched by a lightning flash within a brief time window of 40 ms. The lightning flash produced several low-frequency (LF) E-change pulses that were temporally coincident withthe termination of the gamma-ray glow, and that were located within 0.5 km from the observation site by the Fast Antenna Lightning Mapping Array. The LF pulses had the same polarity as a positive cloud-to-ground current and a normal-polarity in-cloud current. Since this polarity is against the upward electric field for producing the gamma-ray glow (accelerating electrons to the ground), we infer that the glow was terminated by a normal-polarity in-cloud discharge activity between a middle negative layer and an upper positive layer.
鶴見 美和*; 榎戸 輝掲*; 一方井 祐子*; Wu, T.*; Wang, D.*; 篠田 太郎*; 中澤 知洋*; 辻 直樹*; Diniz, G.*; 片岡 淳*; et al.
Geophysical Research Letters, 50(13), p.e2023GL103612_1 - e2023GL103612_9, 2023/07
被引用回数：0 パーセンタイル：0(Geosciences, Multidisciplinary)Gamma-ray glows are observational evidence of relativistic electron acceleration due to the electric field in thunderclouds. However, it is yet to be understood whether such relativistic electrons contribute to the initiation of lightning discharges. To tackle this question, we started the citizen science "Thundercloud Project," where we map radiation measurements of glows from winter thunderclouds along Japan's sea coast area. We developed and deployed 58 compact gamma-ray monitors at the end of 2021. On 30 December 2021, five monitors simultaneously detected a glow with its radiation distribution horizontally extending for 2 km. The glow terminated coinciding with a lightning flash at 04:08:34 JST, which was recorded by the two radio-band lightning mapping systems, FALMA and DALMA. The initial discharges during the preliminary breakdown started above the glow, that is, in vicinity of the electron acceleration site. This result provides one example of possible connections between electron acceleration and lightning initiation.
和田 有希*; 松本 崇弘*; 榎戸 輝揚*; 中澤 知洋*; 湯浅 孝行*; 古田 禄大*; 米徳 大輔*; 澤野 達哉*; 岡田 豪*; 南戸 秀仁*; et al.
Physical Review Research (Internet), 3(4), p.043117_1 - 043117_31, 2021/12
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 Kanazawa and Komatsu cities, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, where low-charge-center winter thunderstorms frequently occur. During four winter seasons from October 2016 to April 2020, in total 70 gamma-ray glows, minute-lasting bursts of gamma rays originating from thunderclouds, were detected. Their average duration is 58.9 sec. Among the detected events, 77% were observed in nighttime. 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 
0.009, 4.68 0.04 MeV, and (1.013 0.003) 
10
erg cm
s
(0.2-20.0 MeV), respectively. The present paper provides the first catalog of gamma-ray glows and their statistical analysis detected during winter thunderstorms in the Kanazawa and Komatsu areas.
久富 章平*; 中澤 知洋*; 和田 有希*; 辻 結菜*; 榎戸 輝揚*; 篠田 太郎*; 森本 健志*; 中村 佳敬*; 湯浅 孝行*; 土屋 晴文
Journal of Geophysical Research; Atmospheres, 126(18), p.e2021JD034543_1 - e2021JD034543_12, 2021/09
被引用回数：15 パーセンタイル：79.1(Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences)Around 17:00 on January 12, 2020 (UTC), radiation detectors installed at two locations with a 1.35 km separation in Kanazawa City, Japan, captured a total of four gamma-ray enhancements. The first pair was simultaneously observed at the two locations at 17:03 and were abruptly terminated by a lightning discharge. The remaining two enhancements were also nearly simultaneously observed 3 min later, and one of them was also terminated by another lightning discharge. At the last termination, a downward terrestrial gamma-ray flash and a negative energetic in-cloud pulse were observed. Both pairs were associated with thundercloud cells. In the first pair, simultaneous detection in two locations 1.35 km apart suggests either a gamma-ray glow emerged in-between and time variability of its intensity were directly observed or there were two (or more) gamma-ray glows in the cell which reached the two detectors coincidentally. In the latter pair, the peak time in the downwind detector was 40 s later than that of the upwind detector. If the irradiation region moved with the cell, it would have taken 110 s. The discrepancy suggests either the glow moved 2.5 times faster than the cell or there were two (or more) glows in the cell. Also, the fact that the thunderstorm cell hosting the latter glows experienced the lightning discharge 3 min before suggests that the strong electric field in the cell can develop within a few minutes.
土屋 晴文; 榎戸 輝揚*; 和田 有希*; 古田 禄大; 中澤 知洋*; 湯浅 孝行*; 楳本 大悟*; 牧島 一夫*; GROWTH Collaboration*
Proceedings of Science (Internet), 358, p.1163_1 - 1163_6, 2021/07
Since 2006, the GROWTH experiment has been successfully operating at the coastal area of Japan Sea. The GROWTH experiment aims at elucidating how particles in lightning and thunderclouds are accelerated to relativistic energies to produce gamma rays and occasionally neutrons. According to observations done by the GROWTH experiment, it is found that there are two types of radiation bursts associated with winter thunderstorms. One is long bursts lasting for a few tens of seconds to a few minutes, being not clearly related to lightning. The other is short bursts in association with lightning. To better understand the production mechanism of these radiation bursts, we have developed a small-type of radiation detectors and increased observational points with the new detectors. In this presentation, we show an overview of observations done by the GROWTH experiment. Then we focus on recent several findings observed by the new detectors. One, which is categorized into long bursts, implies a relationship between a long burst and an intra/inter-cloud discharge. Another is a combination of short bursts and long ones, showing simultaneous detections of prompt gamma rays extending up to 10 MeV and the 511-keV annihilation ones. These gamma-ray signals demonstrate the occurrence of photonuclear reactions in lightning. Based on these results, we discuss the production mechanism of gamma rays related to thunderstorms.
和田 有希*; 榎戸 輝揚*; 久保 守*; 中澤 知洋*; 篠田 太郎*; 米徳 大輔*; 澤野 達哉*; 湯浅 孝行*; 牛尾 知雄*; 佐藤 陽祐*; et al.
Geophysical Research Letters, 48(7), 11 Pages, 2021/04
被引用回数：19 パーセンタイル：89.17(Geosciences, Multidisciplinary)graupels
湯浅 孝行*; 和田 有希*; 榎戸 輝揚*; 古田 禄大; 土屋 晴文; 久富 章平*; 辻 結菜*; 奥田 和史*; 松元 崇弘*; 中澤 知洋*; et al.
Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (Internet), 2020(10), p.103H01_1 - 103H01_27, 2020/10
被引用回数：14 パーセンタイル：73.46(Physics, Multidisciplinary)We designed, developed, and deployed a distributed sensor network aiming at observing high-energy ionizing radiation, primarily gamma rays, from winter thunderclouds and lightning in coastal areas of Japan. Starting in 2015, we have installed, in total, more than 15 units of ground-based detector system in Ishikawa Prefecture and Niigata Prefecture, and accumulated 551 days of observation time in four winter seasons from late 2015 to early 2019. In this period, our system recorded 51 gamma-ray radiation events from thundercloud and lightning. Highlights of science results obtained from this unprecedented amount of data include the discovery of photonuclear reaction in lightning which produces neutrons and positrons along with gamma rays, and deeper insights into the life cycle of a particle-acceleration and gamma-ray-emitting region in a thunder-cloud. The present paper reviews objective, methodology, and results of our experiment, with a stress on its instrumentation.
和田 有希*; 榎戸 輝揚*; 中村 佳敬*; 森本 健志*; 佐藤 光輝*; 牛尾 知雄*; 中澤 知洋*; 湯浅 孝行*; 米徳 大輔*; 澤野 達也*; et al.
Journal of Geophysical Research; Atmospheres, 125(4), p.e2019JD031730_1 - e2019JD031730_11, 2020/02
被引用回数：23 パーセンタイル：80.91(Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences)During 2017-2018 winter operation of the Gamma-Ray Observation of Winter Thunderclouds experiment in Japan, two downward terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) that triggered atmospheric photonuclear reactions were detected. They took place during winter thunderstorms on 5 December 2017 and 9 January 2018 at Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. Each event coincided with an intracloud/intercloud discharge, which had a negative-polarity peak current higher than 150 kA. Their radio waveforms in the low-frequency band are categorized as a distinct lightning type called energetic in-cloud pulse (EIP). Negative-polarity EIPs have been previously suggested to be highly associated with downward TGFs, and the present observations provide evidence of the correlation between them for the first time. Furthermore, both of the downward TGFs followed gamma-ray glows, minute-lasting high-energy emissions from thunderclouds. It is suggested that the negative EIPs took place with downward propagating negative leaders or upward positive ones developed in highly electrified regions responsible for the gamma-ray glows.
榎戸 輝揚*; 和田 有希*; 土屋 晴文
日本物理学会誌, 74(4), p.192 - 200, 2019/04
近年、日本海沿岸にある原子力発電所や自治体がもつ放射線モニタリングポストにより、冬に発生する雷や雷雲の接近に伴い、高エネルギーの放射線の増大が観測されていた。この増大の正体を明かすために、日本海沿岸に位置する柏崎刈羽原子力発電所構内に新型の検出器を設置し、2006年から観測を実施している。また2015年には安価で小型な観測装置を開発し、金沢市や小松市などにも観測拠点を構築してきた。そうした10年以上にわたる観測の結果、雷や雷雲が電子を相対論的なエネルギーに加速できる天然の粒子加速器であることを観測的に実証するとともに、雷が光核反応を引き起こし、中性子や陽電子の発生にも寄与しているという驚くべき事実も明らかにしてきた。こうした放射線観測は、従来の光や電波観測からだけではわからなかった、雷や雷雲が高エネルギー物理現象の現場であるという側面を浮かび上がらせた。本稿では、我々が得た観測結果を解説するとともに、古典的な可視光から電波の観測のみならず、X線や
線の観測、宇宙線,原子核物理や大気化学に広がる「雷雲や雷の高エネルギー大気物理学」という新しい学際分野を紹介する。
土屋 晴文; 日比野 欣也*; 川田 和正*; 大西 宗博*; 瀧田 正人*
no journal, ,
近年、地上や高山において雷雲の発生に伴い放射線(雷雲放射線)が観測されている。雷雲放射線は、雷雲中の準定常的な電場の中で加速された電子が放つ制動放射線であると考えられている。これまでの観測から、雷雲放射線の継続時間は観測高度に大きく依存していることが知られている。例えば、日本海沿岸で観測される雷雲放射線は典型的に1分ほど継続するが、標高3000mを超える観測地点では10分ほど続くことが報告されている。この原因は、雷雲内の電場の存続時間が異なるためと考えられるが、放射線観測データが十分に得られていないため、どのような気象要因が雷雲放射線の発生に関連しているのかは明らかではない。本講演では、高度4300mのチベットにある宇宙線観測装(中性子モニタ)の1998年から2017年の間に得られたデータから探査した雷雲放射線の時間特性を示すとともに、チベット高原での雷や降雨の時間特性と比較する。そうした比較から、雷雲放射線がチベット高原にて雷の頻発する時刻(10時-22時)や雨季に発生しやすいことを確認した。加えて、太陽活動との比較を行い、雷雲放射線の発生頻度の年変動についても議論する。
