Progress in the Study of Transient Luminous and Atmospheric Events: A Review

Abstract

Transient luminous events (TLEs) such as sprites, blue jets (BJs) and elves have been studied intensively during the last three decades, and much is now known of their properties. This progress is caused by several factors including satellite optical observations, ground-based measurements of sprite-produced electromagnetic fields, the use of high-speed video observations and telescopic cameras with high resolution that enables one to trace the dynamics of sprite and BJ development. In this paper, we review various types of TLEs, including recently discovered dancing sprites, gnomes, ultraviolet (UV) atmospheric flashes and other effects. The sprite initiation, visible evolution, streamer structure, and their relationship with intra-cloud (IC) process are discussed. Considerable study has been given to ULF/ELF measurements which can provide us with important information on the delayed sprite generation and the role played by IC processes in the perturbation of the lower ionosphere above the sprite. A set of electrodynamic and transport kinetic equations describing the TLEs are complicated because the number densities, mobilities of electrons and ions, reaction constants and other parameters are strongly dependent on altitude. Because of this, the majority of theoretical study of TLEs and other large-scale optical phenomena at high altitude are based on numerical modeling of the basic kinetic, transport and electrodynamic equations describing TLEs evolution, whereas the analytical theory remains a formidable task to be accomplished. In this paper, we review a few analytical results, which have been recently derived from simple physical models of the TLEs phenomena. In the remainder of this paper, we focus our attention on the properties of UV flashes in the mesosphere, which have been observed onboard Russian microsatellites “Universitetsky-Tanyana” and “Vernov.” Such a kind of optical flash is referred to as a transient atmospheric event, which differs from the TLEs in optical energy, duration and other parameters.