Related papers: Predicting Streamer Discharge Front Splitting by I…
Streamer discharges are the primary mode of electric breakdown of air in lightning and high voltage technology. Streamer channels branch many times, which determines the developing tree-like discharge structure. Understanding these branched…
Streamer discharges are thin plasma channels that precede lightning and sparks. They usually evolve in bundles as stochastic tree-like structures and are inherently difficult to model due to their multiscale nature. In this paper, we…
We present the first analytical and numerical studies of the initial stage of the branching process based on an interface dynamics streamer model in the fully 3-D case. This model follows from fundamental considerations on charge production…
A 2D approach is used to simulate the properties of positive and negative streamers emerging from a high-voltage electrode in a long (14 cm) air gap for standard pressure and temperature. The applied voltage varies from 100 to 500 kV. To…
Streamers often constitute the first stage of dielectric breakdown in strong electric fields: a nonlinear ionization wave transforms a non-ionized medium into a weakly ionized nonequilibrium plasma. New understanding of this old phenomenon…
Streamers often constitute the first stage of dielectric breakdown in strong electric fields: a nonlinear ionization wave transforms a non-ionized medium into a weakly ionized nonequilibrium plasma. New understanding of this old phenomenon…
Positive streamer discharges require a source of free electrons ahead of them for their growth. In air, these electrons are typically provided by photoionization. Here we investigate how stochastic fluctuations due to the discreteness of…
Negative streamer ionization fronts in nitrogen under normal conditions are investigated both in a particle model and in a fluid model in local field approximation. The parameter functions for the fluid model are derived from swarm…
Spontaneous branching of discharge channels is frequently observed, but not well understood. We recently proposed a new branching mechanism based on simulations of a simple continuous discharge model in high fields. We here present…
In this review we describe a transient type of gas discharge which is commonly called a streamer discharge, as well as a few related phenomena in pulsed discharges. Streamers are propagating ionization fronts with self-organized field…
We investigate the branching of positive streamers in air and present the first systematic investigation of splitting into more than two branches. We study discharges in 100 mbar artificial air that is exposed to voltage pulses of 10 kV…
In sufficiently large gaps and electric fields, discharge streamers do branch. In [Arrayas et al., PRL 88, 174502 (2002)], we observed streamer branching numerically within a deterministic particle density model and explained it as a…
Branching is an essential element of streamer discharge dynamics but today it is understood only qualitatively. The variability and irregularity observed in branched streamer trees suggest that stochastic terms are relevant for the…
We explain a mechanism for branching of a planar negative front. Branching occurs as the result of a balance between the destabilizing effect of impact ionization and the stabilizing effect of electron diffusion on ionization fronts. The…
Recently a moving boundary approximation for the minimal model for negative streamer ionization fronts was extended with effects due to front curvature; this was done through a systematic solvability analysis. A central prediction of this…
We use numerical simulations to study the dynamics of surface discharges, which are common in high-voltage engineering. We simulate positive streamer discharges that propagate towards a dielectric surface, attach to it, and then propagate…
Streamers are a generic mode of electric breakdown of large gas volumes. They play a role in the initial stages of sparks and lightning, in technical corona reactors and in high altitude sprite discharges above thunderclouds. Streamers are…
In dielectric breakdown, the phenomena of streamers formation and spontaneous branching is commonly observed. A deterministic negative streamer model is reviewed in this article. We recently have proposed that this reduced model is able to…
The evolution of negative streamers during electric breakdown of a non-attaching gas can be described by a two-fluid model for electrons and positive ions. It consists of continuity equations for the charged particles including drift,…
Starting from the minimal model for the electrically interacting particle densities in negative streamer discharges, we derive a moving boundary approximation for the ionization fronts. The boundary condition on the moving front is found to…