The Relationship of Lightning Radio Pulse Amplitudes and Source Altitudes as Observed by LOFAR

Machado JGO, Hare BM, Scholten O, Buitink S, Corstanje A, Falcke H, Horandel JR, Huege T, Krampah GK, Mitra P, Mulrey K, Nelles A, Pandya H, Rachen JP, Thoudam S, Trinh TNG, Ter Veen S, Winchen T (2022)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2022

Journal

Earth and Space Science American Geophysical Union

Book Volume: 9

Journal Issue: 4

DOI: 10.1029/2021EA001958

Abstract

When a lightning flash is propagating in the atmosphere it is known that especially the negative leaders emit a large number of very high frequency (VHF) radio pulses. It is thought that this is due to streamer activity at the tip of the growing negative leader. In this work, we have investigated the dependence of the strength of this VHF emission on the altitude of such emission for two lightning flashes as observed by the Low Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope. We find for these two flashes that the extracted amplitude distributions are consistent with a power-law, and that the amplitude of the radio emissions decreases very strongly with source altitude, by more than a factor of 2 from 1 km altitude up to 5 km altitude. In addition, we do not find any dependence on the extracted power-law with altitude, and that the extracted power-law slope has an average around 3, for both flashes.

Authors with CRIS profile

Anna Nelles Professur für Experimentelle Astroteilchenphysik, insbesondere Radionachweis von Neutrinos

Involved external institutions

Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) BE Belgium (BE) Radboud University Nijmegen NL Netherlands (NL) Can Tho University / Trường Đại học Cần Thơ VN Viet Nam (VN) Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie / Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy DE Germany (DE) Universidade de Brasília BR Brazil (BR) University of Groningen / Rijksuniversiteit Groningen NL Netherlands (NL) Khalifa University of Science, Technology & Research (KUSTAR) / جامعة خليفة AE United Arab Emirates (AE)

How to cite

APA:

Machado, J.G.O., Hare, B.M., Scholten, O., Buitink, S., Corstanje, A., Falcke, H.,... Winchen, T. (2022). The Relationship of Lightning Radio Pulse Amplitudes and Source Altitudes as Observed by LOFAR. Earth and Space Science, 9(4). https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EA001958

MLA:

Machado, J. G. O., et al. "The Relationship of Lightning Radio Pulse Amplitudes and Source Altitudes as Observed by LOFAR." Earth and Space Science 9.4 (2022).

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