Open AccessRunaway relativistic electron avalanche seeding in the Earth's atmosphere
Author(s) -
Carlson B. E.,
Lehtinen N. G.,
Inan U. S.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2008ja013210
Subject(s) - physics , seeding , electron , electron avalanche , atmosphere (unit) , cosmic ray , flux (metallurgy) , relativistic particle , particle (ecology) , atomic physics , computational physics , nuclear physics , ion , ionization , meteorology , quantum mechanics , oceanography , thermodynamics , geology , materials science , metallurgy
Relativistic runaway electron avalanches (RREAs) occur when relativistic electrons undergo avalanche multiplication when driven by electric fields. The RRE avalanche has been studied extensively, but existing results typically assume a rudimentary source of seed relativistic electrons. Here we focus on the seeding process and simulate effective seeding efficiencies for various seed particle types, energies, and geometries. Including known results from cosmic ray physics, we calculate total seed particle distributions and their statistical fluctuations and use the seeding efficiency results to determine the total number of effective RREA seed particles at various points in the atmosphere. The results indicate that effective seed flux is quite large with only moderate statistical fluctuations.