Rl. Dowden et Cj. Rodger, DECAY OF A VERTICAL PLASMA-COLUMN - A MODEL TO EXPLAIN VLF SPRITES, Geophysical research letters, 24(22), 1997, pp. 2765-2768
VLF sprites are identified by high angle scattering of VLF transmissio
ns by the conducting plasma columns which appear as the luminous colum
ns of ''red sprites''. VLF sprites are ''early/fast Trimpis'' and prob
ably vice versa. Recently discovered properties of early/fast Trimpis
are the logarithmic decay of the amplitude of the scattered signal and
monotonic variation of its phase. These properties are explained in t
erms of scattering from a vertical column or set of columns extending
from 50 km (or lower) altitude to about 80 km.