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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-2078</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Relativistic runaway electron avalanches: unified density-dependent scaling and transport</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Hovhannisyan</surname>
<given-names>Liza</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>A. I. Alikhanyan National Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute), Yerevan, Armenia</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>20</day>
<month>05</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>20</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Liza Hovhannisyan</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2078/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2078/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2078/egusphere-2026-2078.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2078/egusphere-2026-2078.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Relativistic runaway electron avalanches (RREA) play a key role in producing high-energy radiation in thunderstorm environments, yet their quantitative description remains largely empirical, with limited validation across atmospheric conditions. In this work, we develop a unified framework that consistently describes both avalanche development within the electric field and particle propagation beyond it, using CORSIKA simulations at four high-altitude stations spanning a wide range of atmospheric densities. We show that the classical relation for avalanche length requires revision: the empirical coefficient &lt;em&gt;K&lt;/em&gt; is not universal but varies systematically with atmospheric density. Introducing density-dependent scaling yields a consistent description of avalanche growth across all sites. At the same time, we identify an effective energy-partition coefficient, calibrated at a characteristic propagation scale of 100 m, which remains stable across all stations and reflects the available propagation after exiting a strong acceleration field. The results demonstrate that RREA can be described as a two-stage physical system that links density-dependent avalanche growth with density-dependent particle transport via a universal energy-partition mechanism. This framework provides a compact and physically transparent basis for interpreting high-energy atmospheric phenomena across altitudes.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="20"/></counts>
</article-meta>
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