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Register a new userAnalytic Calculation of Radio Emission from Extensive Air Showers subjected to Atmospheric Electric Fields
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We have developed a code that semi-analytically calculates the radio footprint (intensity and polarization) of an extensive air shower subject to atmospheric electric fields. This can be used to reconstruct the height dependence of atmospheric electric field from the measured radio footprint. The various parameterizations of the spatial extent of the induced currents are based on the results of Monte-Carlo shower simulations. The calculated radio footprints agree well with microscopic CoREAS simulations.
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We study the effect of atmospheric electric fields on the radio pulse emitted by cosmic ray air showers. Under fair weather conditions the dominant part of the radio emission is driven by the geomagnetic field. When the shower charges are accelerated and deflected in an electric field additional radiation is emitted. We simulate this effect with the Monte Carlo code REAS2, using CORSIKA-simulated showers as input. In both codes a routine has been implemented that treats the effect of the electric field on the shower particles. We find that the radio pulse is significantly altered in background fields of the order of ~100 V/cm and higher. Practically, this means that air showers passing through thunderstorms emit radio pulses that are not a reliable measure for the shower energy. Under other weather circumstances significant electric field effects are expected to occur rarely, but nimbostratus clouds can harbor fields that are large enough. In general, the contribution of the electric field to the radio pulse has polarization properties that are different from the geomagnetic pulse. In order to filter out radio pulses that have been affected by electric field effects, radio air shower experiments should keep weather information and perform full polarization measurements of the radio signal.
The radio intensity and polarization footprint of a cosmic-ray induced extensive air shower is determined by the time-dependent structure of the current distribution residing in the plasma cloud at the shower front. In turn, the time dependence of the integrated charge-current distribution in the plasma cloud, the longitudinal shower structure, is determined by interesting physics which one would like to extract such as the location and multiplicity of the primary cosmic-ray collision or the values of electric fields in the atmosphere during thunderstorms. To extract the structure of a shower from its footprint requires solving a complicated inverse problem. For this purpose we have developed a code that semi-analytically calculates the radio footprint of an extensive air shower given an arbitrary longitudinal structure. This code can be used in a optimization procedure to extract the optimal longitudinal shower structure given a radio footprint. On the basis of air-shower universality we propose a simple parametrization of the structure of the plasma cloud. This parametrization is based on the results of Monte-Carlo shower simulations. Deriving the parametrization also teaches which aspects of the plasma cloud are important for understanding the features seen in the radio-emission footprint. The calculated radio footprints are compared with microscopic CoREAS simulations.
We present measurements of radio emission from cosmic ray air showers that took place during thunderstorms. The intensity and polarization patterns of these air showers are radically different from those measured during fair-weather conditions. With the use of a simple two-layer model for the atmospheric electric field, these patterns can be well reproduced by state-of-the-art simulation codes. This in turn provides a novel way to study atmospheric electric fields.
We present LOFAR measurements of radio emission from extensive air showers. We find that this emission is strongly polarized, with a median degree of polarization of nearly $99%$, and that the angle between the polarization direction of the electric field and the Lorentz force acting on the particles, depends on the observer location in the shower plane. This can be understood as a superposition of the radially polarized charge-excess emission mechanism, first proposed by Askaryan and the geomagnetic emission mechanism proposed by Kahn and Lerche. We calculate the relative strengths of both contributions, as quantified by the charge-excess fraction, for $163$ individual air showers. We find that the measured charge-excess fraction is higher for air showers arriving from closer to the zenith. Furthermore, the measured charge-excess fraction also increases with increasing observer distance from the air shower symmetry axis. The measured values range from $(3.3pm 1.0)%$ for very inclined air showers at $25, mathrm{m}$ to $(20.3pm 1.3)%$ for almost vertical showers at $225, mathrm{m}$. Both dependencies are in qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions.
The development of cosmic ray air showers can be influenced by atmospheric electric fields. Under fair weather conditions these fields are small, but the strong fields inside thunderstorms can have a significant effect on the electromagnetic component of a shower. Understanding this effect is particularly important for radio detection of air showers, since the radio emission is produced by the shower electrons and positrons. We perform Monte Carlo simulations to calculate the effects of different electric field configurations on the shower development. We find that the electric field becomes important for values of the order of 1 kV/cm. Not only can the energy distribution of electrons and positrons change significantly for such field strengths, it is also possible that runaway electron breakdown occurs at high altitudes, which is an important effect in lightning initiation.
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