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arXiv · 1807.07675

Hard bremsstrahlung from a high-voltage atmospheric discharge and its anisotropy

A. V. Agafonov·A. V. Oginov·A. A. Rodionov·V. A. Ryabov·V. A. Chechin·K. V. Shpakov
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Abstract

The results of the experiments on recording hard gamma radiation and measurements of its angular distribution at the initial stage of a laboratory high-voltage atmospheric discharge are presented. The experiments were performed on an ERG installation at a voltage of $\sim 1$ MV, an atmospheric discharge current of up to 12 kA, and a gap of 0.55 m. The duration of the voltage pulse was about 1~$\mu$s with a pulse rise time of 150-200 ns. The radiation was recorded by an assembly of 10 identical scintillation detectors installed each 10$^\circ$ around the circumference of a quarter of a circle with a curvature of 1 m. In order to separate the radiation with energies from 20 keV to 1.5 MeV, Al and Pb filters of different thicknesses were used. The obtained results show that, as a rule, a multi-beam radiation pattern and several bursts of radiation (each with a directional pattern) are recorded in each shot. In a considerable number of "shots", hard radiation with photon energies comparable to or exceeding the maximum electron energy corresponding to the applied voltage is recorded. In these cases, a needle-like radiation pattern is observed, including at large angles to the axis of the discharge. This may indicate the acceleration of electrons in different plasma channels.

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BibTeXRIS

A. V. Agafonov, A. V. Oginov, A. A. Rodionov, V. A. Ryabov, V. A. Chechin, K. V. Shpakov. 2018-07-20. Hard bremsstrahlung from a high-voltage atmospheric discharge and its anisotropy. https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.07675

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