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Abstract:
Despite the idea that thunderclouds can produce nuclear reactions was proposed almost 100 years ago [Wilson, 1925], evidences of high energetic emissions coming from thunderstorms have been found in the last ~30 years. The discovery of Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes [Fishman et al, 1994], gamma emissions [Moore et al., 2001] and neutron emissions from lightning [e.g. Saha et al., 1985, Enoto et al., 2017] encouraged the atmospheric electricity community to investigate the source of these emissions in a laboratory-controlled environment. Numerous works have focused on the investigation of gamma emissions from high voltage laboratory long sparks [e.g. March et al, 2010,2011]. Until recently, neutrons have been reported to be detected in laboratory sparks [Agafanov, 2013, 2017].In this work, we investigate the production of neutron and gamma bursts in a laboratory-scale. A total of 259 sparks were produced with voltages up to 1.1 MV, at several rise times, with different electrodes and gaps. To detect neutron bursts an array of fast neutrons counters with a nearly flat neutron detection efficiency (0.1-10) MeV is used. The yield detection limit from the discharge zone as low as 500 n/burst/4pi. The gamma is detected using lead shielded scintillators. The experimental results are discussed and compared with recent studies of neutron production in HV atmospheric discharges [Agafanov, 2017; Štěpánová, 2022].
