Comment on "terrestrial gamma-ray flashes caused by neutron bursts above thunderclouds" [J. Appl. Phys. 105, 083301 (2009)]

Abstract

Paiva presented in these pages an argument that terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) are created by the interaction of lightning-generated neutrons with nitrogen nuclei in air. I show that this model cannot produce the observed energy spectrum of TGFs, while the generally accepted model of bremsstrahlung from relativistic electrons fits the data well. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.