Possible detection of high-energy photons from ball lightning.

Shmatov, M L · Phys Rev E · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

It is shown that photons of the prolonged emission recorded by the Gamma-Ray Observation of Winter Thunderclouds (GROWTH) experiment on January 13, 2012 [D. Umemoto et al., Phys. Rev E 93, 021201(R) (2016)10.1103/PhysRevE.93.021201] could be emitted by ball lightning and generated by annihilation of positrons which arose mainly due to production of the β^{+}-active isotopes by the sharp γ-ray flash, accompanying the formation of ball lightning, and production of electron-positron pairs by photons from ball lightning. The model of ball lightning is based on the assumption that ball lightning has a core consisting of clouds of electrons and almost totally ionized ions which oscillate with respect to each other.