Evaluation of Monte Carlo tools for high-energy atmospheric physics II: relativistic runaway electron avalanches

The emerging field of high-energy atmospheric physics studies how high-energy particles are produced in thunderstorms, in the form of terrestrial γ-ray flashes and γ-ray glows (also referred to as thunderstorm ground enhancements). Understanding these phenomena requires appropriate models of the int...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geoscientific Model Development 2018-11, Vol.11 (11), p.4515-4535
Main Authors: Sarria, David, Rutjes, Casper, Diniz, Gabriel, Luque, Alejandro, Ihaddadene, Kevin M. A., Dwyer, Joseph R., Østgaard, Nikolai, Skeltved, Alexander B., Ferreira, Ivan S., Ebert, Ute
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric physics
Atoms & subatomic particles
Avalanches
Breakdown
Computer simulation
Electric field
Electric fields
Electron avalanche
Electron energy
Energy
Energy losses
Energy spectra
Evaluation
Interactions
Ionization
Landslides
Modelling
Particle physics
Photons
Physical characteristics
Physical properties
Physics
Positrons
Probability theory
Radiation
Relativism
Relativistic effects
Self-similarity
Simulation
Simulators
Spectra
Statistical methods
Terrestrial environments
Thunderstorms
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Summary:The emerging field of high-energy atmospheric physics studies how high-energy particles are produced in thunderstorms, in the form of terrestrial γ-ray flashes and γ-ray glows (also referred to as thunderstorm ground enhancements). Understanding these phenomena requires appropriate models of the interaction of electrons, positrons and photons with air molecules and electric fields. We investigated the results of three codes used in the community – Geant4, GRanada Relativistic Runaway simulator (GRRR) and Runaway Electron Avalanche Model (REAM) – to simulate relativistic runaway electron avalanches (RREAs). This work continues the study of Rutjes et al. (2016), now also including the effects of uniform electric fields, up to the classical breakdown field, which is about 3.0 MV m−1 at standard temperature and pressure. We first present our theoretical description of the RREA process, which is based on and incremented over previous published works. This analysis confirmed that the avalanche is mainly driven by electric fields and the ionisation and scattering processes determining the minimum energy of electrons that can run away, which was found to be above ≈10 keV for any fields up to the classical breakdown field. To investigate this point further, we then evaluated the probability to produce a RREA as a function of the initial electron energy and of the magnitude of the electric field. We found that the stepping methodology in the particle simulation has to be set up very carefully in Geant4. For example, a too-large step size can lead to an avalanche probability reduced by a factor of 10 or to a 40 % overestimation of the average electron energy. When properly set up, both Geant4 models show an overall good agreement (within ≈10 %) with REAM and GRRR. Furthermore, the probability that particles below 10 keV accelerate and participate in the high-energy radiation is found to be negligible for electric fields below the classical breakdown value. The added value of accurately tracking low-energy particles (
ISSN:1991-9603
1991-962X
1991-959X
1991-9603
1991-962X
DOI:10.5194/gmd-11-4515-2018