The mechanism of the origin the NBE (CID) and the initiating event (IE) of lightning due to the volume phase wave of EAS-RREA synchronous ignition of streamer flashes

In an article by Kostinskiy et al. (2019) proposed the mechanism of the origin and development of lightning from initiating event to initial breakdown pulses (termed the Mechanism). The Mechanism assumes initiation occurs in a region of a thundercloud of 1 km³ with electric field E > 0.4 MV/(m∙atm), which contains, because of turbulence, numerous small “E_th-volumes” of 0.001-0.0001 m³ with E ≥ 3 MV/(m∙atm). The Mechanism allows for lightning initiation by two observed types of initiating events: a high power VHF event called an NBE (narrow bipolar event or CID), or a weak VHF event. According to the Mechanism, both types of initiating events are caused by a group of relativistic runaway electron avalanche particles passing through many of the E_th-volumes, thereby causing the nearly simultaneous launching of many positive streamer flashes, Kostinskiy et al. (2019).

In this report, based on the Meek’s criterion for the initiation of streamers (Raizer, 1991) at different heights of lightning initiation and taking into account the number of all background electrons, positrons and photons of cosmic rays with energy ε < 10¹² eV (Sato, 2015) crossing E_th-volumes sizes of E_th-volumes are specified (3∙10^-4-3∙10^-5 m³). The report also showed that synchronous injection with a high probability of relativistic electrons into such small E_th-volumes requires of relativistic runaway electrons avalanches to be initiated by extensive air showers with energies ε > 10¹⁵ eV, which would supply (injected) 10⁵-10⁷ secondary electrons into a turbulent region of a thundercloud with a strong electric field.

References

Kostinskiy, A. Yu., Marshall, T.C., Stolzenburg, M. (2019), The Mechanism of the Origin and Development of Lightning from Initiating Event to Initial Breakdown Pulses arXiv:1906.01033

Raizer Yu. (1991), Gas Discharge Physics, Springer-Verlag, 449 p.

Sato T. (2015), Analytical Model for Estimating Terrestrial Cosmic Ray Fluxes Nearly Anytime and Anywhere in the World: Extension of PARMA/EXPACS, PLOS ONE, 10(12): e0144679.