Termination of downward-oriented gamma-ray glow by normal-polarity in-cloud discharge 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

https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JD038606

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.

Evaluation of titanium vacuum chamber as getter pump

神谷 潤一郎; 高野 一弘*; 油座 大夢*; 和田 薫

e-Journal of Surface Science and Nanotechnology (Internet), 20(2), p.107 - 118, 2022/05

AA2022-0067.pdf:4.4MB

https://doi.org/10.1380/ejssnt.2022-017

チタンは放出ガスが少ないため超高真空容器としての利用が真空装置において広がっている。我々はチタン表面の酸化膜を除去することで、チタン製真空容器自体を気体吸着型真空ポンプとして活用する開発を行っている。光電子分光測定で、チタンを真空中加熱することで表面酸化酸化物が内部へ拡散し金属チタンが真空面に露出することを明らかにした。そのうえでチタン製真空容器を加熱することで、真空封止しても高真空を長時間維持できることを実証した。別の手法として、アルゴンスパッタリングにより表面酸化膜を除去することによるチタン製真空容器の超高真空ポンプ化に成功した。大気開放による表面の再酸化を防ぐために、酸化膜を除去したチタン表面に低温ゲッター材をコーティングすることを発案した。このような表面改質を施した真空容器を用いて、10回以上の大気開放を繰り返しても10-8Pa台の到達圧力が維持できること実証した。本成果はJ-PARC加速器真空システムの安定運転維持につながるとともに、既存の真空ポンプがなくても高真空を維持することが可能となることから、持続可能な開発目標に寄与するイノベーション技術へとつながる案件である。

Multiple gamma-ray glows and a downward TGF observed from nearby thunderclouds

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

https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JD034543

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.

Coexistence of strong and weak Majorana zero modes in an anisotropic XY spin chain with second-neighbor interactions

Wada, Kazuhiro*; 杉本 貴則*; 遠山 貴己

Physical Review B, 104(7), p.075119_1 - 075119_12, 2021/08

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.104.075119

We theoretically investigate Majorana zero modes emerging in an anisotropic XY spin chain with second-neighbor interactions. The spin chain is mathematically equivalent to the Kitaev chain comprised of spinless fermions if only nearest-neighbor interactions are considered. Recent studies on the Kitaev chain with long-ranged interactions, have presented coexistence of several Majorana zero modes. Investigating the topological phase diagram of the anisotropic XY spin chain with second-neighbor interactions, we find coexistence of several Majorana zero modes similar to the Kitaev chain. However, we confirm that one of the zero modes is restricted into a Hilbert subspace. The mode is regarded as a so-called weak zero mode that should exhibit thermodynamical properties different from a (strong) zero mode appearing in the whole Hilbert space. Since the quantum statistics of spin is the same as a hard-core boson, we expect an experimental realization of the weak mode in not only quantum spin materials but also optical lattices for cold atom systems.

Gamma-ray observations at the coastal area of Japan Sea in winter seasons

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

https://doi.org/10.22323/1.358.1163

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.

Photonuclear reactions in lightning, 2; Comparison between observation and simulation model

和田 有希*; 榎戸 輝揚*; 中澤 知洋*; 湯浅 孝行*; 古田 禄大; 小高 裕和*; 牧島 一夫*; 土屋 晴文

Journal of Geophysical Research; Atmospheres, 125(20), p.e2020JD033194_1 - e2020JD033194_15, 2020/10

https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD033194

During a winter thunderstorm on 6th February 2017 in Japan, photonuclear reactions such as N()N were triggered by a downward terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), as reported by Enoto et al. (2017). In the present paper, we compare the observation with a simulation model of downward TGFs and subsequent photonuclear reactions constructed by the first paper of the series and Wada, Enoto, Nakazawa, et al. (2019). The observation and model consist of three components: annihilation gamma rays from positrons produced by -decay nuclei, de-excitation gamma rays originating from neutron captures, and radiation doses by TGF photons. Each component of the observation is reproduced by the simulation model, and we constrain a relation between the number of avalanche electrons and their production altitude of the downward TGF. The constrains by three components match within an order of magnitude. The downward TGF is estimated to comprise 10 avalanche electrons above 1 MeV produced at an altitude of 1.4-2.7 km. Despite differences in altitude, direction, and season, downward TGFs in winter thunderstorms are thought to have the same mechanism of electron acceleration and multiplication in lightning as TGFs observed by in-orbit satellites.

Thundercloud project; Exploring high-energy phenomena in thundercloud and lightning

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

https://doi.org/10.1093/ptep/ptaa115

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.

High peak-current lightning discharges associated with downward terrestrial gamma-ray flashes

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

https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD031730

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.

Gamma-ray glow preceding downward terrestrial gamma-ray flash

和田 有希*; 榎戸 輝揚*; 中村 佳敬*; 古田 禄大; 湯浅 孝行*; 中澤 知洋*; 森本 健志*; 佐藤 光輝*; 松元 崇弘*; 米徳 大輔*; et al.

Communications Physics (Internet), 2(1), p.67_1 - 67_9, 2019/06

https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-019-0168-y

Two types of high-energy events have been detected from thunderstorms. One is "terrestrial gamma-ray flashes" (TGFs), sub-millisecond emissions coinciding with lightning discharges. The other is minute-lasting "gamma-ray glows". Although both phenomena are thought to originate from relativistic runaway electron avalanches in strong electric fields, the connection between them is not well understood. Here we report unequivocal simultaneous detection of a gamma-ray glow termination and a downward TGF, observed from the ground. During a winter thunderstorm in Japan on 9 January 2018, our detectors caught a gamma-ray glow, which moved for 100 s with ambient wind, and then abruptly ceased with a lightning discharge. Simultaneously, the detectors observed photonuclear reactions triggered by a downward TGF, whose radio pulse was located within 1 km from where the glow ceased. It is suggested that the highly-electrified region producing the glow was related to the initiation of the downward TGF.

Photonuclear reactions triggered by lightning discharge

榎戸 輝揚*; 和田 有希*; 古田 禄大*; 中澤 知洋*; 湯浅 孝行*; 奥田 和史*; 牧島 一夫*; 佐藤 光輝*; 佐藤 陽祐*; 中野 俊男*; et al.

Nature, 551(7681), p.481 - 484, 2017/11

https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24630

Relativistic electrons accelerated by electric fields of lightnings and thunderclouds emit bremsstrahlung rays, which have been detected at ground observations. The energy of the rays is sufficiently high to potentially invoke atmospheric photonuclear reactions N(, n)N, which would produce neutrons and eventually positrons via decay of generated unstable radioactive isotopes, especially N. However, no clear observational evidence for the reaction has been reported to date. Here we report the first detection of neutron and positron signals from lightning with a ground observation. During a thunderstorm on 6 February 2017 in Japan, an intense -ray flash (1 ms) was detected at our monitoring sites. The subsequent initial burst quickly subsided with an exponential decay constant of 40-60 ms, followed by a prolonged line emission at 0.511MeV, lasting for a minute. The observed decay timescale and spectral cutoff at 10 MeV of the initial emission are well explained with de-excitation rays from the nuclei excited by neutron capture. The centre energy of the prolonged line emission corresponds to the electron-positron annihilation, and hence is the conclusive indication of positrons produced after the lightning. Our detection of neutrons and positrons is unequivocal evidence that natural lightning triggers photonuclear reactions.