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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：15 パーセンタイル：74.18(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*; 中澤 知洋*; 古田 禄大; 湯浅 孝行*; 中村 佳敬*; 森本 健志*; 松元 崇弘*; 牧島 一夫*; 土屋 晴文
Physical Review Letters, 123(6), p.061103_1 - 061103_6, 2019/08
被引用回数：33 パーセンタイル：88.25(Physics, Multidisciplinary)During a winter thunderstorm on 2017 November 24, a strong burst of gamma-rays with energies up to 
10 MeV was detected coincident with a lightning discharge, by scintillation detectors installed at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant at sea level in Japan. The burst had a sub-second duration, which is suggestive of photoneutron productions. The leading part of the burst was resolved into four intense gamma-ray bunches, each coincident with a low-frequency radio pulse. These bunches were separated by 0.7
1.5 ms, with a duration of 
1 ms each. Thus, the present burst may be considered as a "downward" terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), which is analogous to up-going TGFs observed from space. Although the scintillation detectors were heavily saturated by these bunches, the total dose associated with them was successfully measured by ionization chambers, employed by nine monitoring posts surrounding the power plant. From this information and Monte Carlo simulations, the present downward TGF is suggested to have taken place at an altitude of 2500
500 m, involving 
avalanche electrons with energies above 1 MeV which is comparable to those in up-going TGFs.
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
被引用回数：49 パーセンタイル：93.08(Physics, Multidisciplinary)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.
