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和田 有希*; Wu, T.*; 鴨川 仁*; Wang, D.*; 岡田 豪*; 南斗 秀仁*; 澤野 達也*; 久保 守*; 米徳 大輔*; Diniz, G. Z.*; et al.
Journal of Geophysical Research; Atmospheres, 130(24), p.e2025JD043927_1 - e2025JD043927_16, 2025/12
We report two gamma-ray glows observed on December 22, 2023, during a winter thunderstorm in Japan, using an array of four radiation detectors. The first glow, detected by one sensor, was quenched by a lightning discharge. The second glow appeared 2-3 minutes later and was tracked by three other detectors. Radar observations suggest both glows originated from the same thundercloud cell. However, the detection timing of the second glow was inconsistent with simple thundercloud movement, indicating temporal variations in intrinsic glow brightness. A three-dimensional lightning mapping observation suggests that a discharge activity depleted the electric field that generated the first glow, and that the electric field having produced the second glow has been rapidly recovered. In addition, the radar observations also detected a descent of the thundercloud core between the two glows, which may have developed an electrified region and the second glow enough to be observed by the detectors. Tracking gamma-ray glows is crucial for understanding electrified regions in thunderclouds and associated gamma-ray glows.
和田 有希*; 鴨川 仁*; 久保 守*; 榎戸 輝揚*; 林 省吾*; 澤野 達也*; 米徳 大輔*; 土屋 晴文
Journal of Geophysical Research; Atmospheres, 128(21), p.e2023JD039354_1 - e2023JD039354_20, 2023/11
被引用回数：2 パーセンタイル：17.81(Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences)During the 2020-2021 winter season, we detected 6 gamma-ray glows at Kanazawa University, Japan. Negative surface electric fields (E-fields) were observed by a field mill during all the glow cases. In five of the six cases, the maximum E-field reached 
kV m
, and the E-field during the glow detection was the strongest in 3 hours before and after the detection time. Therefore, negative charges should have been dominant in the thunderclouds that produced the gamma-ray glows, and electrons were probably accelerated and multiplied by the E-fields between a predominantly negative charge layer and a localized positive charge layer below. In addition, we extracted 8 non-detection cases in the 2020-2021 winter season, in which surface E-fields were stronger than kV m. In 5 of the 8 cases, radar echoes were inadequately developed, suggesting insufficient charge accumulation. On the other hand, the remaining 3 cases had well-developed radar echoes, and there was no significant difference from the detection cases.
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.
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), p.e2020GL091910_1 - e2020GL091910_11, 2021/04
被引用回数：24 パーセンタイル：83.78(Geosciences, Multidisciplinary)During three winter seasons from November 2016 to March 2019, 11 gamma-ray glows were detected at a single observation site of our ground-based gamma-ray monitoring network in Kanazawa, Japan. These events are analyzed with observations of an X-band radar network, a ceilometer, a disdrometer, and a weather monitor. All the detected glows were connected to convective high-reflectivity regions of more than 35 dBZ, developed up to an altitude of 
2 km. They were also accompanied by heavy precipitation of graupels. Therefore, graupels in the lower layer of thunderclouds that correspond to high-reflectivity regions can form strong electric fields producing gamma-ray glows. Also, these events are compared with a limited sample of nondetection cases, but no significant differences in meteorological conditions were found between detection and nondetection cases in the present study.
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：30 パーセンタイル：79.77(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.
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：62 パーセンタイル：92.77(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.
