Lightning strike spawns stream of antimatter

Abstract

Thunderbolts and lightning are more than just frightening. For the first time, we have definitive proof that lightning creates radiation and even clouds of antimatter. Teruaki Enoto at Kyoto University in Japan and his colleagues used four radiation detectors to pickup neutron and positron signals during a thunderstorm earlier this year. These terrestrial gamma ray flashes occur within intense electric fields generated by lightning. Those fields accelerate electrons to ultra-high energies where they can emit gamma rays. Predictions suggested those gamma rays could then slam into molecules in the atmosphere and cause chemical reactions that create neutrons and radioactive elements. As radioactive decay kicks in, positrons, aka antimatter electrons, are produced. Lightning ultimately transforms nitrogen-14 into carbon-13, an alchemy that only occurs in extreme environments. It's so powerful that on a small scale it does things that only fusion in stars and supernovae do, says Steven Cummer at Duke University in Durham NC