Discharge processes associated with fast decaying gamma-ray glows observed during the ALOFT aircraft campaign

From the discoveries by the Airborne Lightning Observatory for FEGS and TGFs (ALOFT), we know that thunderclouds can emit gamma-rays for hours over very large distances. Marisaldi et al. (2024) reported observations of numerous glowing regions, each containing several individual glows, as the aircraft passed over active thunderclouds. Overall, ALOFT detected more than 500 glows, showing a wide variety of time profiles, including glows with a gradual decay and those with a very sharp decrease in gamma-ray flux after reaching the peak intensity. Making use of the combination of instruments onboard ALOFT, as well as ground-based sensors, we explore the termination of gamma-ray glows detected by ALOFT. In this study, we focus on glows with a very fast decrease in flux (reduction by >50% in