Runaway breakdown and electric discharges in thunderstorms

By A. Gurevich, K. Zybin. 2001

325 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This review concerns the theory of the avalanche multiplication of high-energy (0.1 – 10 MeV) electrons in a neutral material, a newly discovered phenomenon known as runaway breakdown (RB). In atmospheric conditions RB takes place at electric fields an order of magnitude weaker than those needed for normal breakdown in air. Experimental work of the past few years has shown that RB determines the maximum electric field strength in thunderclouds and is behind a variety of phenomena newly observed in thunderstorm atmosphere, such as giant high-altitude discharges between thunderclouds and the ionosphere, anomalous amplifications of X-ray emission, intense bursts of gamma radiation, etc. These phenomena are becoming increasingly active areas of study. A necessary condition for the occurrence of runaway avalanche is the presence of high energy seed electrons. In the atmosphere, these are cosmic ray secondary electrons. Therefore, the observed effects reflect the close relationship between cosmic rays and electrodynamic processes in the thunderstorm atmosphere. The first laboratory results on RB are also presented. Further studies in this area may be of interest for high-current electronics.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Control and Systems Engineering, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c0c1ef39fe002e9214e6d408b171dfc25687d43c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Joseph R. Dwyer
2. Martin A. Uman
3. David M. Smith
4. S. Cummer
5. V. Pasko
6. S. Celestin
7. V. Rakov
8. H. Rassoul

In Control and Systems Engineering

1. Joseph R. Dwyer
2. V. Pasko
3. J. Lowke

In Materials Chemistry

1. Joseph R. Dwyer
2. S. Cummer
3. David M. Smith
4. Martin A. Uman
5. S. Celestin
6. V. Rakov
7. V. Pasko
8. J. Lowke

Citations in the corpus

• The physics of lightning (2014, background): “Nevertheless, the name ‘‘runaway breakdown’’ is sometimes used to describe such runaway electrons avalanches [120,244,245].”
• X‐ray bursts associated with leader steps in cloud‐to‐ground lightning (2005, background): “[5] These results demonstrate that lightning is not just a conventional discharge but also involves the runaway breakdown process [Gurevich et al., 1992], in which electrons are accelerated to relativistic energies by strong electric fields [Gurevich and Zybin, 2001; Dwyer, 2003, 2004].”
• Energy and fluxes of thermal runaway electrons produced by exponential growth of streamers during the stepping of lightning leaders and in transient luminous events (2011, background): “We will also demonstrate that the relativistic runaway electron avalanche multiplication process, which has an avalanche length ∼50 m [Gurevich and Zybin, 2001], is generally not necessary for explanation of significant fluxes of runaway electrons with 2 of 14 tens of MeV in the Earth’s atmosphere…”
• On the physics of lightning (2004, methodology): “Petrov and Waters [43] use a “minimum charge” criterion, for leader inception.”
• Recent advances in theory of transient luminous events (2010, background): “…which were previously thought to require galactic cosmic rays and a relativistic avalanche multiplication process with spatial scales exceeding dimensions of streamer zones of lightning leaders by orders of magnitude [Gurevich et al., 1992; Gurevich and Zybin, 2001, 2005, and references therein].”
• High-Energy Atmospheric Physics: Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes and Related Phenomena (2012, background): “…elastic scattering) is included, the runaway electrons described by Wilson will undergo avalanche multiplication, resulting in a large number of relativistic runaway electrons for each energetic seed electron injected into the high-field region (Gurevich et al. 1992; Gurevich and Zybin 2001).”
• A ground level gamma‐ray burst observed in association with rocket‐triggered lightning (2004, background): “possible that when the leader reached this charge, an intense discharge was initiated, producing the gamma-ray burst via the runaway breakdown of air [Gurevich and Zybin, 2001].”
• A fundamental limit on electric fields in air (2003, background): “[3] One class of models for describing discharges in thunderstorms incorporates the runaway breakdown of air, which has an electric field threshold about an order of magnitude lower than that needed for a conventional breakdown [Wilson, 1925; Gurevich et al., 1992; Gurevich and Zybin, 2001].”