Review of recent results on streamer discharges and discussion of their relevance for sprites and lightning
By Ute Ebert, S. Nijdam, Chao Li, Alejandro Luque, T. Briels, E. V. Veldhuizen. 2010
145 citations recorded by the source corpus.
[1] It is by now well understood that large sprite discharges at the low air densities of the mesosphere are physically similar to small streamer discharges in air at standard temperature and pressure. This similarity is based on Townsend scaling with air density. First, the theoretical basis of Townsend scaling and a list of six possible corrections to scaling are discussed; then the experimental evidence for the similarity between streamers and sprites is reviewed. We then discuss how far present sprite and streamer theory has been developed, and we show how streamer experiments can be interpreted as sprite simulations. We review those results of recent streamer research that are relevant for sprites and other forms of atmospheric electricity and discuss their implications for sprite understanding. These include the large range of streamer diameters and velocities and the overall 3-D morphology with branching, interaction and reconnection, the dependence on voltage and polarity, the electron energies in the streamer head, and the consecutive chemical efficiency and hard radiation. New theoretical and experimental results concern measurements of streamer spectra in air, the density dependence of streamer heating (hot leaders are unlikely at 80 km altitude and cold streamers are unlikely in liquids), and a discussion of the influence of magnetic fields on thermal electrons or on energetic electrons in streamers or sprites.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/79eaf4df2f4874338fe6c0f32f037afb37727e0c
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In Astronomy and Astrophysics
In Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging
Citations in the corpus
- The physics of streamer discharge phenomena (2020, background): “altitudes in the atmosphere, hence at different air densities, is elaborated further in [100, 158].”
- Lightning Related Transient Luminous Events at High Altitude in the Earth’s Atmosphere: Phenomenology, Mechanisms and Effects (2012, background): “…extensive review articles (Boeck et al. 1998; Rodger 1999; Inan 2002; Inan et al. 2010; Lyons et al. 2003; Pasko 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010; Raizer et al. 2010; Neubert et al. 2008; Roussel-Dupre et al. 2008; Mishin and Milikh 2008; Ebert and Sentman 2008; Ebert et al. 2010; Siingh et al. 2008).”