Cosmic Accelerators and Terrestrial Detectors

Comment on comment by J. R. Dwyer and D. M. Smith on “‘Seed’ electrons from muon decay for runaway mechanism in the terrestrial gamma ray flash production”

“…Considering that muons will lose K i = 0.02 GeV to ionization before reaching the top of the electrical dipole, we have that maximum energy of muons is K max = 0.42 GeV. From the cosmic ray momentum spectrum [ Shellard , 2001], we estimate that about 1% of the total muon flux has energy between 10 MeV and 0.42 GeV. Thus, considering cloud area A = 1 km 2 , muon flux ϕ 0 = 1.5 × 10 5 m −2 s −1 between 15 to 20 km altitude, and 1 ms TGF duration, negative muon flux over the thundercloud produces 7 × 10 5 energetic seeding electrons.…”

Comment on “‘Seed’ electrons from muon decay for runaway mechanism in the terrestrial gamma ray flash production,” by Gerson S. Paiva, Antonio C. Pavão, and Cristiano C. Bastos

“…Considering that muons will lose K i = 0.02 GeV to ionization before reaching the top of the electrical dipole, we have that maximum energy of muons is K max = 0.42 GeV. From the cosmic ray momentum spectrum [Shellard, 2001], we estimate that about 1% of the total muon flux has energy between 10 MeV and 0.42 GeV. Thus, considering cloud area A = 1 km 2 , muon flux 0 = 1 Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.…”