Simultaneous detection of lightning flashes by MMIA-ASIM and Colombia Lightning Mapping Array

Author(s):  
Jesús Alberto López ◽  
Joan Montanyà ◽  
Oscar van der Velde ◽  
Ferran Fabró ◽  
Javier Navarro ◽  
...  

<p>Since April 2018, the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) has been in operation on board the International Space Station (ISS). ASIM is composed of the Modular X-and Gamma Ray Sensor (MXGS) as well as a multispectral and high resolution array of photometers and cameras, called the Modular Multispectral Imaging Array (MMIA). These instruments allow us to investigate Terrestrial Gamma-Flashes, Transient Luminous Events and their interactions with thunderstorms and lightning flashes.</p><p>The Colombia Lightning Mapping Array (COL-LMA), operational since 2017, is the first VHF range network installed and working in a tropical region, and can contribute to the electrical understanding of thunderstorms and lightning leader processes associated with high energy phenomena in the upper atmosphere.</p><p>This work employs data from the MMIA array to investigate optical emission patterns at different bands (337 nm, 180-230 nm and 777.4 nm) caused by lightning leader development and cloud-to-ground flashes, derived from the COL-LMA and LINET network respectively. All cases are also correlated with optical observation from the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on board the ISS, and the Geostationary Lightning Mapper sensor on the GOES-R satellite.</p><p>The region of study is defined by the high detection-efficiency area of the COL-LMA around the Magdalena river valley. MMIA-ASIM information since July 2019 corresponding to passes over this tropical region has been analysed.</p>

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Bjørge-Engeland ◽  
Nikolai Østgaard ◽  
Chris Alexander Skeie ◽  
Andrey Mezentsev ◽  
Torsten Neubert ◽  
...  

<p>In 2018, the Atmospheric Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) was launched and mounted onboard the Columbus module of the International Space Station (ISS). Using data from the Modular X- and Gamma-Ray Sensor (MXGS) and the Modular Multispectral Imaging Array (MMIA), we investigate the time sequence of the TGFs detected by MXGS and the optical pulses detected by the MMIA. The optical pulses are observed in the 337 nm and 777.4 nm, and the X- and gamma-rays are detected by the High Energy Detector of MXGS, which is sensitive to energies from 300 keV to more than 30 MeV. We will also look into the TGF duration and any correlation with the time between the TGFs and the main optical signals. The data used is from June 2018 (shortly after mounting on the Columbus module) until the end of March 2019, when the relative timing uncertainty between the two instruments was +/- 80 us. The data after this is presented in Skeie et al.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
He Li-xia ◽  
Hao Xiao-yong ◽  
He Gao-kui

Thallium bromide (TlBr) is a compound semiconductor material, which can be used for X-ray and gamma-ray detectors and can be used at room temperature. It has excellent physical properties, high atomic number and density, wide bandgap (B = 2.68 eV), and low ionization energy. Compared with other X-ray and gamma-ray detection materials, TlBr devices have high detection efficiency and excellent energy resolution performance. So TlBr is suitable for housing in small tubes or shells, and it can be widely used in nuclear material measurement, safeguards verification, national security, space high-energy physics research, and other fields. Based on the fabrication of TlBr prototype detector, this paper focuses on the device fabrication and signal acquisition technology. Gamma-ray spectrum measurements and performance tests are carried out with AM-241 radioactive source. The results show that the special photoelectric peak of 59.5 keV is clearly visible, and the optimal resolution is 4.15 keV (7%).


2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (28) ◽  
pp. 1951-1966 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Lamanna

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is a high energy particle physics experiment in space scheduled to be installed on the International Space Station (ISS) by 2006 for a three-year mission. After a precursor flight of a prototype detector on board of the NASA Space Shuttle in June 1998, the construction of the detector in its final configuration is started and it will be completed by 2004. The purpose of this experiment is to provide a high statistics measurement of charged particles and nuclei in rigidity range 0.5 GV to few TV and to explore the high-energy (> 1 GeV ) gamma-ray sky. In this paper we describe the detector layout and present an overview of the main scientific goals both in the domain of astrophysics: cosmic-ray origin, age and propagation and the exploration of the most energetic gamma-ray sources; and in the domain of astroparticle: the anti-matter and the dark matter searches.


2014 ◽  
Vol 03 (02) ◽  
pp. 1440008 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Beilicke ◽  
F. Kislat ◽  
A. Zajczyk ◽  
Q. Guo ◽  
R. Endsley ◽  
...  

X-ray polarimetry promises to give qualitatively new information about high-energy astrophysical sources, such as binary black hole systems, micro-quasars, active galactic nuclei, neutron stars, and gamma-ray bursts. We designed, built and tested a X-ray polarimeter, X-Calibur, to be used in the focal plane of the balloon-borne InFOCμS grazing incidence X-ray telescope. X-Calibur combines a low-Z scatterer with a Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) detector assembly to measure the polarization of 20–80 keV X-rays making use of the fact that polarized photons scatter preferentially perpendicular to the electric field orientation. X-Calibur achieves a high detection efficiency of ≃80%. The X-Calibur detector assembly is completed, tested, and fully calibrated. The response to a polarized X-ray beam was measured successfully at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source. This paper describes the design, calibration and performance of the X-Calibur polarimeter. In principle, a similar space-borne scattering polarimeter could operate over the broader 2–100 keV energy band.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Battisti ◽  
Enrico Arnone ◽  
Mario Bertaina ◽  
Marco Casolino ◽  
Olivier Chanrion ◽  
...  

<p>The search for the physical mechanisms of lightning, transient luminous events and terrestrial gamma-ray flashes is receiving an extraordinary support by new space observations that have recently become available. Next to lightning detectors on geostationary satellites, new low orbit experiments are giving an unprecedented insight in the very source of these processes. Looking at the physics behind these new observations requires however to have a variety of different instruments covering the same event, and this is proving extremely challenging. Here, we present observations of UV emissions of elves and lightning taken for the first time simultaneously from the two instruments Mini-EUSO and ASIM operating on the international space station. Mini-EUSO was designed to perform observations of the UV-light night emission from Earth. It is a wide field of view telescope (44°x44° square FOV) installed for the first time on October 2019 inside the Zvezda Module of the ISS, looking nadir through a UV transparent window. Its optical system consists of two Fresnel lenses for light collection. The light is focused onto an array of 36 multi-anode photomultiplier tubes (MAPMT), for a total of 2304 pixels. Each pixel has a footprint on ground of ~5.5 km. The instrument is capable of single-photon counting on three different timescales: a 2.5 microsecond (D1) and a 320 microsecond (D2) timescale with a dedicated trigger system, and a 40.96ms timescale (D3) used to produce a continuous monitoring of the UV emission from the Earth. ASIM is an experiment dedicated to lightning and atmospheric processes. Its Modular Multispectral Imaging Array (MMIA) is made of an array of 3 high speed photometers probing different wavelength sampling at rates up to 100 kHz, and 2 Electron Multiplication Charge Coupled Devices (EM-CCDs) with a sub-km spatial resolution with an 80° FOV and recording up to 12 frames per second. Mini-EUSO detected several bright atmospheric events like lightning and elves, with a few km spatial resolution and different time resolutions, probing therefore different stages of the electromagnetic phenomena. Observations from Mini-EUSO were simultaneously captured by ASIM instruments, allowing for the first time to compare and complement the capabilities of the two instruments with a time inter-calibration based on unambiguous series of lightning detections.</p>


2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (29) ◽  
pp. 6890-6893 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
YOSHIYA KAWASAKI ◽  
M. BERTAINA ◽  
T. EBISUZAKI ◽  
F. KAJINO ◽  
...  

The Extreme Universe Space Observatory (EUSO) is a space mission to study extremely high-energy cosmic rays. The EUSO instrument is a wide-angle refractive telescope in near-ultraviolet wavelength region to observe time-resolved atmospheric fluorescence images of the extensive air showers from the International Space Station. The Focal surface is an aspherical curved surface, and its area amounts to about 4.5 m2. The focal surface detector is designed as a mosaic of multianode photomultipliers (MAPMT) for the single photoelectron counting capability. The strongest requirement for the focal surface detector is the maximization of the photon detection efficiency together with the uniformity over the focal surface. We have developed a new type of MAPMT. It is modified from the ordinary one and has a grid between the photocathode and the first dynode to electrostatically demagnify the photoelectron image on the dynode. We are also developing the HV supply system for a great number of MAPMTs. EUSO experiments the day-time and night-time every 90 minutes. The heat flow must be considered to stabilize the PMT characteristics, in parallel with the heat dissipation of the electronics attached on the focal surface supporting structure.


2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (06) ◽  
pp. 977-984
Author(s):  
N. GEHRELS ◽  
J. K. CANNIZZO

We are in an exciting period of discovery for gamma-ray bursts. The Swift observatory is detecting 100 bursts per year, providing arcsecond localizations and sensitive observations of the prompt and afterglow emission. The Fermi observatory is observing 250 bursts per year with its medium-energy GRB instrument and about 10 bursts per year with its high-energy LAT instrument. In addition, rapid-response telescopes on the ground are providing new capabilities to study optical emission during the prompt phase and spectral signatures of the host galaxies. The combined data set is enabling great advances in our understanding of GRBs including afterglow physics, short burst origin, and high-energy emission.


2022 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
pp. C01001
Author(s):  
F. Ahmadov ◽  
G. Ahmadov ◽  
R. Akbarov ◽  
A. Aktag ◽  
E. Budak ◽  
...  

Abstract In the presented work, the parameters of a new MAPD-3NM-II photodiode with buried pixel structure manufactured in cooperation with Zecotek Company are investigated. The photon detection efficiency, gain, capacitance and gamma-ray detection performance of photodiodes are studied. The SPECTRIG MAPD is used to measure the parameters of the MAPD-3NM-II and scintillation detector based on it. The obtained results show that the newly developed MAPD-3NM-II photodiode outperforms its counterparts in most parameters and it can be successfully applied in space application, medicine, high-energy physics and security.


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