Observations of hard X-rays of auroral origin with Polar Patrol Balloons No. 8 and 10

• Main Authors: Tomokazu Nakamura, Yusuke Ebihara, Masaki Ejiri, Akira Kadokura, Naoki Matsumoto, Yukihiro Matsuzaka, Kenji Mukai, Hiroyuki Murakami, Michio Nakagawa, Michiyoshi Namiki, Naoya Oshima, Yoshitaka Saito, Natsuo Sato, Hiromu Suzuki, Wataru Takahashi, Masami Uchida, Takamasa Yamagami, Hisao Yamagishi, Mikio Yamamoto, Makoto Yamauchi
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Science, Osaka City University/National Institute of Polar Research/National Institute of Polar Research/National Institute of Polar Research/Faculty of Science, Osaka City University/The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/Faculty of Science, Osaka City University/Faculty of Science, Rikkyo University/Faculty of Science, Osaka City University/The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/Faculty of Science, Osaka City University/The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/National Institute of Polar Research/Faculty of Science, Rikkyo University/Faculty of Science, Osaka City University/Osaka Shin-aijyogakuin High School/The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/National Institute of Polar Research/Faculty of Engineering, Miyazaki University/Faculty of Engineering, Miyazaki University 2004
• Subjects: Polar Patrol Balloon; auroral X-rays; Syowa Station; Antarc*; Antarctica; Advances in polar upper atmosphere research
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=6377; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00006377/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=6377&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

In the Polar Patrol Balloon (PPB) project, two balloons named PPB-8 and -10 were launched in rapid succession to form a cluster of balloons during their flight on January 13, 2003, from Syowa Station, Antarctica. In order to make the two-dimensional images for auroral X-rays and to obtain the energy spectra of auroras with energy range from 30 keV to 778 keV, the same instruments for hard X-rays were installed on PPB-8 and -10, respectively. These detection systems observed several auroral X-ray events during the flight. In particularly on January 25, 2003, strong auroral events were detected at about 0919 UT by PPB-10 and at 0927 UT by PPB-8. The aurora observed by PPB-10 was observed after about 8 min by PPB-8 located a 650 km west of PPB-10. The energy spectra of the bright aurora at 0919 UT and 0927 UT for PPB-10 and -8 is obtained as E0 = (78+-5) keV and (70+-5) keV, respectively.