Detection of terrestrial gamma-ray flashes with the AGILE satellite

Abstract

Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes are brief submillisecond gamma-ray emissions, produced during thunderstorms and strictly correlated to lightning and atmospheric electric activity. Serendipitously discovered in 1994 by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, these elusive events have been further investigated by several missions and satellites devoted to high-energy astrophysics, such as RHESSI, AGILE and Fermi. Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes are thought to be bremsstrahlung gamma-rays, produced at the top of thunderclouds by avalanches of electrons accelerated within thunderstorm strong electric fields and abruptly braked in the atmosphere. Exhibiting energies ranging from few keV up to several tens of MeV, terrestrial gamma-ray flashes are the most energetic phenomenon naturally occurring on Earth and they can represent a severe risk for airplanes and aircraft transports, both for the crew and the on board electronics, that should be carefully investigated and understood.The AGILE (Astrorivelatore Gamma ad Immagini LEggero) satellite is an entirely Italian mission, launched in 2007 and still operational, aimed at investigating gamma-ray emissions from cosmic sources. The wide energy range and the unique submillisecond trigger logic of its on-board instruments, together with the narrow quasi-equatorial orbit of the spacecraft, make AGILE a very suitable instrument to detect and investigate terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. Recent improvements rose up the terrestrial gamma-ray flashes detection rate and lead to the observation, for the first time, of multiple events occurring within single thunderstorm processes.