A lightning monitoring system for studying transient phenomena in cosmic ray observatories

TL;DR

This paper introduces a lightning monitoring system designed to study how thunderstorms influence secondary cosmic ray particles at ground level by capturing transient electric fields with high temporal resolution.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel self-triggered, fast-recording lightning monitoring system tailored for cosmic ray observatories, enabling detailed study of electric field effects on particle flux.

Findings

System records lightning electric fields at 10 μs resolution.

Detection range extends up to 200 km for high-current lightning.

Facilitates analysis of atmospheric electric effects on cosmic rays.

Abstract

During thunderstorms, the atmospheric electric field can increase above hundreds of kV/m, causing an acceleration in the charged particles of secondary cosmic rays. Such an acceleration causes avalanche processes in the atmosphere, enhancing/reducing the particle flux at ground level depending on the strength/polarity of the electric field. We present the design and implementation of a self-triggered and fast-recording lightning monitoring system used to study the transient electric field atmospheric effect on the secondary particle flux above cosmic ray observatories. The acquisition device records lightning electric field at 10 $\mu$s resolution (during 1.2 s per event), covering a detection range up to 200 km ($I_{peak} >$ 100 kA)