2018-12-14 06:11:44

Participation of Armenian Physicists in AGU Centennial Meeting

.The Cosmic Ray Division (CRD of Yerevan Physics Institute) physicists actively participate in numerous American Geophysical Union (AGU) activities including this year’s centennial conference.
AGU was established in 1919 by the National Research Council and is one of the largest world scientific organizations. The key to ensuring a sustainable future and a healthy planet will be better understanding of the Earth and space sciences. AGU and its members continue to be lead players in this work as the natural variances of planetary systems become increasingly well understood, linkages are appreciated, and perturbations are clearly identified. The implications of geophysical research are vital in informing public policy decisions and AGU serves as an important source of key information on Earth systems: present and future.
AGU-2018, held in Washington, DC December 10 – 14, included near 25,000 participants. It serves as the launch of AGU’s Centennial, with special events, sessions, and engagement opportunities for all attendees.
CRD physicists publish research papers in AGU journals and newspapers, review papers submitted to AGU journals by other scientists, present reports on their work at the AGU meetings and conferences, and establish numerous scientific contacts with AGU members from other countries. The CRD physicists’ work is mostly presented at the Atmospheric and Space Electricity sections of the AGU, which focuses on exploring electrical phenomena in the atmosphere and exosphere from the perspectives of plasma physics, space science, middle-atmosphere science and traditional atmospheric electricity.
CRD has pioneered the addition of High-energy physics to the atmospheric processes in AGU’s Atmospheric and Space Electricity sections. This is a new and fast developing branch of atmospheric physics where CRD has the world-leading position.
CRD showed strong participation in the AGU 2018 conference in Washington DC, including CRD’s head Prof. Ashot Chilingarian, PhD post-doctoral physicist Bagrad Mailyan, PhD student Hripsime Mkrtchyan. The director of Gumri
Institute of Seismology also joined the Armenian Delegation this year. CRD is currently placing a node of the Armenian Geophysical Network also in Gyumri thanks to support from the Armenian Engineers and Scientists of America, Michigan Section.
The details of CRD’s scientific reports are posted in CRD WEP site http://www.crd.yerphi.am/2018. Among most important scientific achievements of CRD physicist at AGU 2018 Fall meeting are: • Presenting the new model of the thundercloud electricity supporting huge fluxes of electrons, gamma rays, and neutrons; • Discussing the long-lasting thunderstorm ground enhancements (LL TGEs) – a newly discovered phenomenon in atmospheric physics; • Presenting statistical data on long-term variations of some geophysical parameters in Armenia; • Several preliminary agreements were established on enlarging CRD collaborations with AGU member institutions: • Prof. Earle Williams from MIT will collaborate with CRD physicists on the research of storm conditions that are creating electric field structures in the cloud that accelerated electrons downward in the direction to Earth’s surface; • The new president-elect of Atmospheric and Space Electricity AGU section Prof. Maribeth Stolzenburg express interest to use particle detectors fabricated by CRD for research of the intracloud electric fields; • Prof. Xiushu QIE, president of the International Commission on Atmospheric Electricity (ICAE) suggest installing a unit of the SEVAN particle detector network in China; • Tight contacts were established with Japanese physicists from GROWTH collaboration establishing multi-point observations of high-energy phenomena in Winter storms. • Dr. David Smith from Santa-Cruz University CA ask for to locate a unit of a proposed new network of particle detectors on Aragats; • Dr. Christopher Fazano from Mammoth College wants to calibrate his new neutron detector with Aragats Neutron Monitor..