CEDAR email: Balloon-Relativistic-Accelerator Discussion Sunday December 8

[Ennio Sanchez]

Balloon-Relativistic-Accelerator Discussion Sunday December 8

We are hosting a meeting before AGU to discuss the possibility of a new active experiment with an atmospheric balloon carrying a relativistic-electron accelerator.

We will meet 1:00 - 5:00 p.m. Sunday December 8 in the Gold Rush B room at the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway. The Holiday Inn Golden Gateway is at 1500 Van Ness Avenue, at Pine Street.

The purpose of the discussions is (1) to determine what science can be done with this experiment, (2) to determine how to do it, and (3) to build a team.

An overview of the thinking right now is a potential balloon experiment carrying a relativistic-electron accelerator to ~35-km altitude where a 5-MeV electron beam has a range of 2.3 km. The electron beam will simulate the precipitation of relativistic electrons (and high-energy protons) into the atmosphere for atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric electricity studies. The payload will rapidly charge positively when the electron beam is fired: a long wire is deployed to increase the capacitance of the payload and to place the location of discharge away from the payload and into the field of view of optical diagnostics. A beam with an energy greater than 15 MeV can escape the atmosphere from a 35-km altitude.

Science topics might include:
Relativistic-electron (and high-energy ion) air chemistry,
High-altitude discharge physics,
Atmospheric electricity (electron attachment rates, decay or transport of ionization),
Atmospheric chemistry (production of NOX, HOX),
Atmospheric spectroscopy.

Please give us a heads up if you can join these discussions. (Or if you can’t make it, but are interested, also let us know.) For those who cannot attend, we are also looking into teleconferencing options.

Thanks,

Joe Borovsky (Space Science Institute) jborovsky at spacescience.org
Gian Luca Delzanno (Los Alamos National Laboratory) delzanno at lanl.gov
Bob Marshall (University of Colorado) Robert.Marshall at colorado.edu
Ennio Sanchez (SRI International) ennio.sanchez at sri.com

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