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

• Main Authors: Nakamura, Tomokazu, Ebihara, Yusuke, Ejiri, Masaki, Kadokura, Akira, Matsumoto, Naoki, Matsuzaka, Yukihiro, Mukai, Kenji, Murakami, Hiroyuki, Nakagawa, Michio, Namiki, Michiyoshi, Oshima, Naoya, Saito, Yoshitaka, Sato, Natsuo, Suzuki, Hiromu, Takahashi, Wataru, Uchida, Masami, Yamagami, Takamasa, Yamagishi, Hisao, Yamamoto, Mikio, Yamauchi, Makoto
• Language: English
• Published: National Institute of Polar Research 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/record/6377/files/KJ00000729577.pdf; https://doi.org/10.15094/00006377; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/6377

P(論文) 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. departmental bulletin paper