Observation of Variations in Cosmic Ray Single Count Rates During Thunderstorms and Implications for Large-Scale Electric Field Changes
Abstract
We present the first observation by the Telescope Array Surface Detector (TASD) of the effect of thunderstorms on the development of cosmic ray single count rate intensity over a 700 km area. Observations of variations in the secondary low-energy cosmic ray counting rate, using the TASD, allow us to study the electric field inside thunderstorms, on a large scale, as it progresses on top of the 700 km detector, without dealing with the limitation of narrow exposure in time and space using balloons and aircraft detectors. In this work, variations in the cosmic ray intensity (single count rate) using the TASD, were studied and found to be on average at the and up to 2\% level. These observations were found to be both in excess and in deficit. They were also found to be correlated with lightning in addition to thunderstorms. These variations lasted for tens of minutes; their footprint on the ground ranged from 6 to 24 km in diameter and moved in the same direction as the thunderstorm. With the use of simple electric field models inside the cloud and between cloud to ground, the observed variations in the cosmic ray single count rate were recreated using CORSIKA simulations. Depending on the electric field model used and the direction of the electric field in that model, the electric field magnitude that reproduces the observed low-energy cosmic ray single count rate variations was found to be approximately between 0.2-0.4 GV. This in turn allows us to get a reasonable insight on the electric field and its effect on cosmic ray air showers inside thunderstorms.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2111.09962,
title = {Observation of Variations in Cosmic Ray Single Count Rates During Thunderstorms and Implications for Large-Scale Electric Field Changes},
author = {R. U. Abbasi and T. Abu-Zayyad and M. Allen and Y. Arai and R. Arimura and E. Barcikowski and J. W. Belz and D. R. Bergman and S. A. Blake and I. Buckland and R. Cady and B. G. Cheon and J. Chiba and M. Chikawa and T. Fujii and K. Fujisue and K. Fujita and R. Fujiwara and M. Fukushima and R. Fukushima and G. Furlich and N. Globus and R. Gonzalez and W. Hanlon and M. Hayashi and N. Hayashida and K. Hibino and R. Higuchi and K. Honda and N. Husseini and D. Ikeda and T. Inadomi and N. Inoue and T. Ishii and H. Ito and D. Ivanov and H. Iwakura and A. Iwasaki and H. M. Jeong and S. Jeong and H. Johnson and C. C. H. Jui and K. Kadota and F. Kakimoto and O. Kalashev and K. Kasahara and S. Kasami and H. Kawai and S. Kawakami and S. Kawana and K. Kawata and I. Kharuk and E. Kido and H. B. Kim and J. H. Kim and J. H. Kim and M. H. Kim and S. W. Kim and Y. Kimura and S. Kishigami and Y. Kubota and S. Kurisu and V. Kuzmin and M. Kuznetsov and Y. J. Kwon and K. H. Lee and R. LeVon and B. Lubsandorzhiev and J. P. Lundquist and K. Machida and H. Matsumiya and T. Matsuyama and J. N. Matthews and R. Mayta and J. Mazich and M. Minamino and K. Mukai and I. Myers and P. Myers and S. Nagataki and K. Nakai and R. Nakamura and T. Nakamura and T. Nakamura and Y. Nakamura and A. Nakazawa and E. Nishio and T. Nonaka and K. OBrien and H. Oda and S. Ogio and M. Ohnishi and H. Ohoka and Y. Oku and T. Okuda and Y. Omura and M. Ono and R. Onogi and A. Oshima and S. Ozawa and I. H. Park and M. Potts and M. S. Pshirkov and J. Remington and D. C. Rodriguez and G. I. Rubtsov and D. Ryu and H. Sagawa and R. Sahara and Y. Saito and N. Sakaki and T. Sako and N. Sakurai and K. Sano and K. Sato and T. Seki and K. Sekino and P. D. Shah and Y. Shibasaki and F. Shibata and N. Shibata and T. Shibata and H. Shimodaira and B. K. Shin and H. S. Shin and D. Shinto and J. D. Smith and P. Sokolsky and N. Sone and B. T. Stokes and T. A. Stroman and Y. Takagi and Y. Takahashi and M. Takamura and M. Takeda and R. Takeishi and A. Taketa and M. Takita and Y. Tameda and H. Tanaka and K. Tanaka and M. Tanaka and Y. Tanoue and S. B. Thomas and G. B. Thomson and P. Tinyakov and I. Tkachev and H. Tokuno and T. Tomida and S. Troitsky and R. Tsuda and Y. Tsunesada and Y. Uchihori and S. Udo and T. Uehama and F. Urban and T. Wong and M. Yamamoto and K. Yamazaki and J. Yang and K. Yashiro and F. Yoshida and Y. Yoshioka and Y. Zhezher and Z. Zundel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.09962},
year = {2022}
}