Confining the angular distribution of terrestrial gamma ray flash emission

Terrestrial gamma ray flashes (TGFs) are bremsstrahlung emissions from relativistic electrons accelerated in electric fields associated with thunder storms, with photon energies up to at least 40 MeV, which sets the lowest estimate of the total potential of 40 MV. The electric field that produces TGFs will be reflected by the initial angular distribution of the TGF emission. Here we present the first constraints on the TGF emission cone based on accurately geolocated TGFs. The source lightning discharges associated with TGFs detected by RHESSI are determined from the Atmospheric Weather Electromagnetic System for Observation, Modeling, and Education (AWESOME) network and the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN). The distribution of the observation angles for 106 TGFs are compared to Monte Carlo simulations. We find that TGF emissions within a half angle >30° are consistent with the distributions of observation angle derived from the networks. In addition, 36 events occurring before 2006 are used for spectral analysis. The energy spectra are binned according to observation angle. The result is a significant softening of the TGF energy spectrum for large (>40°) observation angles, which is consistent with a TGF emission half angle (