Energy spectrum from single TGFs detected by ASIM
- 1University in Bergen, Birkeland Centre for Space Science, Department of Physics and Technology, Bergen, Norway (anders.lindanger@student.uib.no)
- 2National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
- 3University of Valencia, Spain
Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs) are sub milliseconds bursts of high energy photons associated with lightning flashes in thunderstorms. The Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM), launched in April 2018, is the first space mission specifically designed to detect TGFs. We will mainly focus on data from the High Energy Detector (HED) which is sensitive to photons with energies from 300 keV to > 30 MeV, and include data from the Low Energy Detector (LED) sensitive in 50 keV to 370 keV energy range. Both HED and LED are part of the Modular X- and Gamma-ray Sensor (MXGS) of ASIM.
The energy spectrum of TGFs, together with Monte Carlo simulations, can provide information on the production altitude and beaming geometry of TGFs. Constraints have already been set on the production altitude and beaming geometry using other spacecraft and radio measurements. Some of these studies are based on cumulative spectra of a large number of TGFs (e.g. [1]), which smooth out individual variability. The spectral analysis of individual TGFs has been carried out up to now for Fermi TGFs only, showing spectral diversity [2]. Crucial key factors for individual TGF spectral analysis are a large number of counts, an energy range extended to several tens of MeV, a good energy calibration as well as knowledge and control of any instrumental effects affecting the measurements.
We strive to put stricter constraints on the production altitude and beaming geometry, by comparing Monte Carlo simulations to energy spectra from single ASIM TGFs. We will present the dataset and method, including the correction for instrumental effects, and preliminary results on individual TGFs.
Thanks to ASIM’s large effective area and low orbital altitude, single TGFs detected by ASIM have much more count statistics than observations from other spacecrafts capable of detecting TGFs. ASIM has detected over 550 TGFs up to date (January 2020), and ~115 have more than 100 counts. This allows for a large sample for individual spectral analysis.
References:
How to cite: Lindanger, A., Marisaldi, M., Østgaard, N., Mezentsev, A., Neubert, T., Reglero, V., Kochkin, P., Lehtinen, N., Sarria, D., Carlson, B. E., Maiorana, C., Skeie, C. A., Bjørge-Engeland, I., Ullaland, K., Genov, G., Christiansen, F., and Köhn, C.: Energy spectrum from single TGFs detected by ASIM , EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-16206, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-16206, 2020
