Nor Amberd station Aragats station 5 km 12.8 km 26.5 km 12.8 km between Nor Amberd and Aragats 39.1 km between Yerevan and Aragats 26.5 km between Yerevan and Nor Amberd. Aragats Nor Amberd Yerevan Location of three electric field meters

12 Lightnings terminated TGE

The typical features of the negative cloud-to- ground (-CG) lightnings terminated TGE are: Mean rise time of the near-surface electrostatic field ~ 242 ± 88 ms; Mean field recovery time (FWHM) ~ 4.3 ± 2.3 sec; Mean particle flux drop – 37 ± 23%; Mean field surge –60 ± 19 kV/m; Mean distance to lightning ~ 5.3 ± 2.9 km.

Electrostatic field measured by 5 electric mills located at Aragats (black, blue and green), Nor Amberd (red) and Yerevan (brown) – no field reversal noticed for all 3 lightnings terminated TGEs!

IC lightning; field reversal occurred

First TGE interrupted by lightning measured with fast electronics

Shift of the time = 120 ms: maximum field by NTP (online microPC) 120 ms late comparing with absolute GPS myRio time! Scale factor by 2 maximal values of electrostatic field equals to 4.85 ~5!

From this picture (SKL STAND1 three layers and SKL field) is apparent that sharp decrease in 50 msec time series of particle flux started also abrupt at 14:45:07.175, after lightning, and after picoscope trigger! Start of the TGE abrupt termination at 14:45: Picoscope trigger-start of atmospheric discharges – PB 14:45:6.995

STAND1 (SKL) count rates before and after lightning Table 1 Table 2 Statistics of 50-ms time series at 10/7/ :45:4 - 10/7/ :45:6.9 Table 2 Statistics of 50-ms time series at 10/7/ :45: /7/ :45:9

New TGE model :not isolated RREA, but many emitting regions!

The tripole structure of electric field LPCR blocked lightnings LPCR initiate TGE Lightning kills LPCR and TGE Q LPCR ~ 0.4 – 1C

TGE initiation: development of the LPCR TGE model: LPCR initiation and decay 1.TGEs occurs on high RH; 2.TGE occurs at temperatures above freezing; 3. Rain wash out TGE; 4.TGE occurs at large negative near surface electric fields; 5.CG- lightning terminates/declines TGE; 6.LPCR blocks lightning leaders: 7. During TGE CG- are suppressed 8.IC- are allowed;

Fast electric field waveform and electrostatic filed change 15:51:21.446, Aug. 6, 2015 PB- preliminary breakdown RS -return stroke

Physical inference from special TGE events terminated by –CG lightnings The atmospheric discharges that terminated the TGE at Aragats are cloud-to-ground negative lightnings. At 7 October 2015 TGE decay started simultaneously with abrupt increase of near-surface electrostatic field after the return stroke deposited large negative charge to the ground. It is another prove that of our model of high-energy physics in atmosphere: electrostatic field is accelerating electrons! Not lightning itself! TGE is proxy of matureness of the LPCR. If the TGE flux is maximal we can deduce that LPCR is mature and thick. In the beginning and at the decay phase we can assume that as particle flux is small LPCR is as well thinner than at the flux maximum. In contradiction with model proposed by (Nag and Rakov, 2009) the thickness of LPCR do not influence the negative leader propagation through it. This equal frequency of TGE termination in the beginning, at maximum and at decaying phase can be interpreted in 2 ways: The local LPCR in the cloud above the detectors site have can arbitrary thickness; however, several kilometers apart where lightning strikes, the LPCR was thin; There are another players that influence the lightning initiation much more than LPCR; i.e. very large EAS occasionally hitting the cloud and unleashing –CG by the RB-EAS mechanism (Gurevich et al., 1999).

Peak of the bottom scintillator of STAND1 MAKET during lightning time

Peak of STAND3 MAKET at lightning time

Lightning time: peak in bottom STAND1 SKL and no peak in STAND3 SKL? Inference or particles distributed very non-uniformly – ECSes??

As we estimate the lightning time: 14:45:07- 14:45:07.05, the fast waveform correspond to return stroke Fast electric field waveform of the lightning of 14:45:06.995, October 7, Data capture length is 500ms, including 100ms pre-trigger time. Sample interval is 16ns. Multiple sub- microsecond-scale pulses are observed in the range from 6ms to 318ms after trigger.