NaI Detector Network at Aragats

The Aragats Space Environmental Center (ASEC) [1] provides monitoring of different species of secondary cosmic rays and consists of two high altitude research stations on Mt. Aragats in Armenia. Along with solar modulation effects, ASEC detectors register several coherent enhancements associated with thunderstorm activity. The experimental techniques used allowed for the first time to simultaneously measure fluxes of the electrons, muons, gamma rays, and neutrons correlated with thunderstorm activity [2,3]. Ground-based observations by a complex of surface particle detectors, measuring in systematically and repeatable fashion, gamma quanta, electrons, muons and neutrons from atmospheric sources are necessary for proving the theory of particle acceleration and multiplication during thunderstorms. Energy spectra and correlations between fluxes of different particles, measured on Earth's surface address the important issues of research of the solar modulation effects and the atmospheric high-energy phenomena. In May 26 2011, launched 5 NaI(Tl) (thallium-doped sodium iodide) scintillation detectors and 1 plastic one in the new ASEC laboratory on Aragats to detect low energy gamma rays from the thunderclouds and short particle bursts. Including NaI(Tl) detectors in ASEC detectors system is of great importance for investigation thunderstorm phenomena because NaI(Tl) detectors have high efficiency of gamma ray detecting in comparison with plastic ones.