Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2019
Volume 64, Number 3
Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2019; Denver, Colorado
Session G12: Undergraduate Research IV
8:30 AM–9:54 AM,
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Sheraton
Room: Plaza Court 1
Chair: Brad Conrad, Society of Physics Students/Sigma Pi Sigma
Abstract: G12.00002 : What can elves tell us about very strong lightning?*
8:42 AM–8:54 AM
View Presentation Abstract
Presenter:
William Daniels
(Colorado School of Mines)
Authors:
William Daniels
(Colorado School of Mines)
Kevin-Druis Merenda
(Colorado School of Mines)
Lawrence Wiencke
(Colorado School of Mines)
Elves are a class of transient luminous events that occur in the ionosphere above strong lightning strikes. This phenomenon is intricately linked to the process of lightning formation. Each lightning strike creates a unique electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that propagates outwards to the ionosphere. Once there, the EMP accelerates free electrons that cause nitrogen molecules to fluoresce. The fluorescence detectors at the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory are quite sensitive to this signature, which constitutes an elve. Using the elves, we might be able to reconstruct the lightning parameters that created them. This would give us insight into the inner mechanisms of some of the strongest and least understood storms on the planet. To begin to study this relationship, we used simulation to estimate the effect of lightning parameters on the shape and magnitude of elve time profiles. Mapping the parameter space of the simulation in this way will give us a test bed to better extract information about lightning from the elves. Furthermore, it will allow us to correlate our simulated results with elve data collected at Pierre Auger.
*This work was supported by NSF Award 1506486.
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