Search for Correlations Between Sprites and Tgfs By Goddard Robotic Telescope Wide Field (GRT-WF)

It is believed that accelerated electrons are responsible for both Sprites and terrestrial gamma-­ray flashes (TGFs). Although several theoretical explanations have been made, we still do not fully understand how TGFs are generated. Therefore, we search for any correlations between Sprites and TGFs. We constructed a wide field optical camera system (GRT-­WF) using off-­the-­shelf hardwares in June, 2011 at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU), Fort Myers, Florida where a high thunderstorm activity during summer is observed. Seven cameras have been set to point along azimuth directions to cover most of the visible sky. The field of view of each camera is ~40 x 60 deg. The events are captured automatically by off-­the-­shelf software. We have observed hundreds of Sprites in the past three years. We have compared these Sprites with the TGFs detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in times and locations. We discuss the preliminary results of our analysis.