Photonuclear reactions in lightning, 1; Verification and modeling of reaction and propagation processes

Wada, Yuki*; Enoto, Teruaki*; Nakazawa, Kazuhiro*; Odaka, Hirokazu*; Furuta, Yoshihiro; Tsuchiya, Harufumi 

We report simulation results of photonuclear reactions in the atmosphere triggered by a downward terrestrial gamma-ray flash in lightning. Possible channels of reactions in the atmosphere and their cross sections are verified with the ENDF/B-VII.1 library. Monte-Carlo simulations with two stages are then performed with the Geant4 framework. In the first stage, electrons following the relativistic runaway electron avalanche spectrum are produced in a mass model of the atmosphere, and production of photoneutrons and -decay nuclei is calculated based on the nuclear data library. In total 1 neutrons and 4 -decay nuclei are produced by energetic electrons above 1 MeV. In the second stage, propagation of the photoneutrons and positrons from the -decay nuclei in the previous stage is calculated. As a result, we model on-ground distributions of fluxes and energy spectra for neutrons, neutron-related gamma rays, and annihilation ones. The simulation model is to be compared with photonuclear events detected in low-charge-center winter thunderstorms.