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Observations of Terrestrial Gamma Flashes with TETRA and LAGO Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2014 Observations of Terrestrial Gamma Flashes with TETRA And LAGO Rebecca Ringuette Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons Recommended Citation Ringuette, Rebecca, "Observations of Terrestrial Gamma Flashes with TETRA And LAGO" (2014). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2934. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2934 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. OBSERVATIONS OF TERRESTRIAL GAMMA FLASHES WITH TETRA AND LAGO A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Physics & Astronomy by Rebecca A. Ringuette B. S., Louisiana State University, 2007 M. S., Louisiana State University, 2013 August 2014 This dissertation is dedicated primarily to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who blessed me with this opportunity and gave me the strength to complete it. I also dedicate this work to my husband, my child and my mother, without whom it would have been extremely difficult. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The lightning data were provided by the United States Precision Lightning Network Unidata Program. The radar data used for the automated daily analysis described in chapter 4 were automatically downloaded in real time from http://www.wunderground.com using code developed by S. Baldridge. The weather data used for the secondary analysis described in chapter 6 can be requested at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/nexradinv/. Radar analysis was performed using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Weather and Climate Toolkit, available at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/wct/ free of charge. Secondary radar analysis was performed using GR2Analyst version 2.00, available at http://www.grlevelx.com/gr2analyst_2/. The gamma-ray data from the Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flash and Energetic Thunderstorm Rooftop Arrary is available upon request (contact [email protected]). Analysis of gamma-ray and lightning data were performed using software developed for this project, available at http://heastro.phys.lsu.edu/lsutgfcode/ free of charge. The author would like to thank M. L. Cherry, T. G. Guzik, J. P. Wefel, G. Case, M. Stewart, D. Granger, J. Isbert, B. Ellison, D. Smith, S. Baldridge, and N. Cannady for their assistance with the project, and especially J. Fishman for valuable discussions. This project has been supported in part by NASA/Louisiana Board of Regents Cooperative Agreement NNX07AT62A and the Curry Foundation. The author also appreciates graduate fellowship support from the Louisiana Board of Regents. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iii LIST OF TABLES. .v LIST OF FIGURES . vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . .x ABSTRACT. xiii CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION . .1 CHAPTER 2 – MOTIVATION . 2 CHAPTER 3 – TETRA DETECTOR DESCRIPTION . 10 CHATPER 4 – TETRA DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS: JULY 2010 TO FEBRUARY 2013 . .14 CHAPTER 5 – UPDATED TETRA DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS: JULY 2010 TO MARCH 2014. .26 CHAPTER 6 – TETRA STORM ANALYSIS . .34 CHAPTER 7 – LAGO DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS . .61 CHAPTER 8 – FUTURE PLANS: TETRA II. .65 CHAPTER 9 – CONCLUSION. .69 BIBLIOGRAPHY. .71 APPENDIX A – TETRA ELECTRONICS . 77 APPENDIX B – LAGO ELECTRONICS . 83 APPENDIX C – ANALYSIS PROCESS . .88 APPENDIX D – PERMISSION . .90 VITA . 91 iv LIST OF TABLES 4.1 Properties of the 24 Event Candidates. .18 5.1 Properties of the 28 Event Candidates. .28 8.1 Comparison of TETRA and TETRA II Properties . 67 v LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Time profiles of BATSE TGFs . .2 2.2 Map of sub-satellite location for all 820 RHESSI TGFs. 3 2.3 High Resolution Full Climatology Annual Flash Rate. 3 2.4 TGFs detected by GBM on the Fermi satellite. 4 2.5 The effective frictional force experienced by a free electron moving through air at STP as a function of kinetic energy . 6 2.6 Partial Monte Carlo simulation showing the runaway breakdown of air . 7 3.1 One of the four TETRA detector boxes. .10 3.2 Map of TETRA detection box locations. 11 3.3 Inside a TETRA detection box . 12 3.4 One of TETRA’s NaI PMT assemblies . .12 3.5 Standard voltage divider used for TETRA’s NaI PMTs . .13 4.1 Summed NaI counting rate per minute in Box 3 on 8/18/2011 . 14 4.2 LaBr3:Ce Rain Spectrum. .15 4.3 TETRA Report for 8/18/2011 events. .16 4.4 Distribution of events with significance σ. .20 4.5 Spectra of Event Candidates and non-EC TETRA triggers. .21 4.6 NaI time histories over 50 msec window centered on the trigger time for each CEC . .22 4.7 CEC Event Spectra . 23 4.8 All Lightning Activity within 5 miles of TETRA from 7/1/2010 to 2/28/2013. 24 5.1 Time assigned to a group of counts by DAQ v6.5 during June - July 2012. 26 5.2 NaI time histories over ±50 msec window centered on the trigger time for noise EC detected on June 6, 2012 at 19:23:27.057. 27 vi 5.3 Detector count rates during event on 13 Sept 2013. 31 5.4 Distribution of events with significance σ for July 1, 2010 to October 31, 2013 . 32 5.4 Spectra of Event Candidates and non-EC TETRA triggers from July 1, 2010 to October 31, 2013. 33 6.1 Main Thunderstorm Stages . 34 6.2 Smoothed radar image of the single cell thunderstorm producing the TETRA TGF on 12 Mar 2012. 35 6.3 Three dimensional radar image of the single cell thunderstorm producing the TETRA TGF on 12 Mar 2012. 36 6.4 Basic structure of a squall line thunderstorm . 37 6.5 Smoothed radar image of a squall line of thunderstorms producing the TETRA TGF on 29 Jun 2013 . 38 6.6 Smoothed radar image of the storm producing two TETRA TGFs on 22 Jun 2013. 39 6.7 Three dimensional radar image sequence of the thunderstorm producing two TETRA TGFs on 22 Jun 2013 . 40 6.8 VILD and Estimated Tops of the storm on 22 Jun 2013. 41 6.9 Lightning flash rate observed with the storm producing the TETRA TGFs on 22 Jun 2013. 43 6.10 Three dimensional radar image sequence of the thunderstorm producing one TETRA TGF on 24 Feb 2011. 44 6.11 Three dimensional radar image sequence of the thunderstorm producing one TETRA TGF on 29 Jul 2011. 45 6.12 Three dimensional radar image sequence of the thunderstorm producing two TETRA TGFs on 31 Jul 2011. 46 6.13 Three dimensional radar image sequence of the thunderstorm producing two TETRA TGFs on 18 Aug 2011. 47 6.14 Three dimensional radar image sequence of the thunderstorm producing one TETRA TGF on 12 Mar 2012. 48 vii 6.15 Three dimensional radar image sequence of the thunderstorm producing one TETRA TGF on 2 Apr 2012. .49 6.16 Three dimensional radar image sequence of the thunderstorm producing one TETRA TGF on 4 Apr 2012. .50 6.17 Three dimensional radar image sequence of the thunderstorm producing two TETRA TGFs on 6 Jun 2012. ..
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