LOFAR Lightning Imaging: Mapping Lightning With Nanosecond Precision

B M Hare; O Scholten; A Bonardi; S Buitink; A Corstanje; U Ebert; H Falcke; J R Hörandel; H Leijnse; P Mitra; K Mulrey; A Nelles; J P Rachen; L Rossetto; C Rutjes; P Schellart; S Thoudam; T N G Trinh; S Ter Veen; T Winchen

doi:10.1002/2017JD028132

LOFAR Lightning Imaging: Mapping Lightning With Nanosecond Precision

J Geophys Res Atmos. 2018 Mar 16;123(5):2861-2876. doi: 10.1002/2017JD028132. Epub 2018 Mar 12.

Authors

B M Hare¹, O Scholten^{1

2}, A Bonardi³, S Buitink⁴, A Corstanje³, U Ebert^{5

6}, H Falcke^{2

7

8

9}, J R Hörandel^{3

7}, H Leijnse¹⁰, P Mitra⁴, K Mulrey⁴, A Nelles^{3

11}, J P Rachen³, L Rossetto³, C Rutjes⁵, P Schellart^{3

12}, S Thoudam¹³, T N G Trinh¹, S Ter Veen^{3

8}, T Winchen⁴

Affiliations

¹ KVI-Center for Advanced Radiation Technology University of Groningen Groningen Netherlands.
² Interuniversity Institute for High-Energy Vrije Universiteit Brussel Brussels Belgium.
³ Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP Radboud University Nijmegen Nijmegen Netherlands.
⁴ Astrophysical Institute Vrije Universiteit Brussel Brussels Belgium.
⁵ Center for Mathematics and Computer Science Amsterdam Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Applied Physics Eindhoven University of Technology Eindhoven Netherlands.
⁷ NIKHEF, Science Park Amsterdam Amsterdam Netherlands.
⁸ Netherlands Institute of Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) Dwingeloo Netherlands.
⁹ Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie Bonn Germany.
¹⁰ Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute De Bilt Netherlands.
¹¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy University of California Irvine Irvine CA USA.
¹² Department of Astrophysical Sciences Princeton University Princeton NJ USA.
¹³ Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering Linnuniversitetet Växjö Sweden.

Abstract

Lightning mapping technology has proven instrumental in understanding lightning. In this work we present a pipeline that can use lightning observed by the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope to construct a 3-D map of the flash. We show that LOFAR has unparalleled precision, on the order of meters, even for lightning flashes that are over 20 km outside the area enclosed by LOFAR antennas (∼3,200 km²), and can potentially locate over 10,000 sources per lightning flash. We also show that LOFAR is the first lightning mapping system that is sensitive to the spatial structure of the electrical current during individual lightning leader steps.

Keywords: LOFAR; leader propagation; lightning; lightning mapping; time of arrival.