AE21A-06
On the Energy Spectra of Individual Terrestrial Gamma ray Flashes
Tuesday, 15 December 2015: 09:15
3001 (Moscone West)
Bagrat G Mailyan1, Michael S Briggs1, Eric S Cramer1, Valerie Connaughton2, Joseph R Dwyer3 and Gerard Fitzpatrick4, (1)University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, United States, (2)Univ of AL in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, United States, (3)University of New Hampshire Main Campus, Department of Physics, Durham, NH, United States, (4)University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Abstract:
The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) receives enough photons from some TGFs that spectral fitting of individual TGFs is possible. Previous TGF spectral fits relied upon summing the data from many TGFs. However, this spectral analysis of individual GBM TGFs is difficult because the number of photons is only adequate and because the extreme intensity of TGFs requires the analysis to correct for spectral distortions caused by pulse pileup. For each TGF in the sample, we compare Monte Carlo simulated TGF spectra to the observed detector counts. For each comparison, the best fit intensity is found, including correcting the predicted spectrum for pulse pileup. Using likelihood, we determine which of the simulations are consistent with each TGF, thus constraining the properties (e.g., altitude, beam width, etc.) of the TGF.
