2014-09-22 10:55:30

Exploring Origin of the High-energy particle “beams” in Earth’s Atmosphere

Thunderstorms and Elementary Particle Acceleration;
Yerevan, Armenia, 22–26 September 2014

High-energy processes in the magnetosphere and atmosphere like TGEs (Thunderstorm ground enhancements), TGFs (Terrestrial gamma ray flashes) and TLEs (Transient luminous events) and recently discovered relativistic electron acceleration in the Earth’s outer radiation belt trigger various dynamic processes in the Earth’s environments and have broad astrophysical relevance. Investigation of the «accelerated» structures in the Geospace plasmas can shed light on particle acceleration to much higher energy by the similar structures of space plasmas in the most distant objects in the Universe. The Earth’s broad environment is a real laboratory for high-energy astrophysics.
To discuss these high-energy phenomena, the conference on Thunderstorms and Elementary Particle Acceleration was held at the Nor Amberd International Conference Center of the Yerevan Physics Institute (YerPhI) in Armenia. The Cosmic Ray Division of YerPhI and Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics of Moscow State University organized the workshop; YerPhI and the European Geophysical union sponsored it. Thirty scientists and students from the United States, France, China, Israel, Russia, and Armenia attended. 
Presentations focused on research on observations and models of the high-energy emissions in thunderclouds; on emerging charged structures in thunderclouds and estimation of its size; on radio frequency emission from atmospheric electrical discharges; on comparisons of different simulations of cascade developments in the atmospheric electric fields; on observations of broad band electromagnetic emissions by RELEC and CHIBIS-M space missions; on new methods of data analysis of registered TGFs and new planned space missions.
Discussions covered questions such as the following: are the TGEs and TGFs – symmetric processes? are Extensive cloud shower (ECSes) observed on microsecond scale in TGEs analog of the TGFs? are there causal relations between particle fluxes and lightnings ? 
The workshop participants agreed that it would be useful to compare vast amount of experimental data on TGE energy spectra with the TGF observations and models. Research on high-energy phenomena in thunderclouds is becoming more and more multidisciplinary including measurements of secondary cosmic rays, radio emission from atmospheric discharges, optical monitoring of the thunderclouds and emissions from them, lightning detection and classification and meteorological monitoring. The multivariate visualization and correlation analysis of all measurements pose serious problems on searches in the data archives when data stream is pressing and new interesting events are appearing almost every new day. One of possible solutions to assist researchers in physical analysis is presented on symposia intellectual data exploration system developed by collaboration of Institute of electronics and Data Processing of Karlsruhe institute of technology (KIT) and Cosmic Ray Division (CRD) of Yerevan Physics Institute. A user-friendly interface interactively visualizes the multiple time-series and selects relevant parameters for different research objectives. In this way we try to fully utilize the new concept of “big” data when enormous amount of relevant observations culminates in “new” physics unprecedented fast and precise. 
As usual on TEPA symposia organizers prepare lectures on selected topics of “hot” science. Students and researchers highly appreciate presentations of Ani Abrahamyan, 
University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, The Frontiers of Nuclear Physics In the 21st Century; Robert Avagyan, Yerevan Physics Institute, Armenia, Accelerator Complex for Nuclear Physics Studies and Boron Neutron Capture Therapy; Felix Aharonian, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Ireland and Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg, Germany, Nature's most effective particle accelerators;
Kh. Meliksetyan, institute of Geology, National Academy of Armenia, Vulcanic activity in Armenia.


The presentation slides and discussion videos are available on the conference website, http://crd.yerphi.am/Conferences/tepa2014/home.