Related papers: The physics of streamer discharge phenomena
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…
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…
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…
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…
This proceedings paper from 2004 contains figures of discharges in different gap lengths at the same potential that are not available elsewhere. The 2004 abstract: The evolution of streamers is known to depend on gas composition and…
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…
A major obstacle for the understanding of long electrical discharges is the complex dynamics of streamer coronas, formed by many thin conducting filaments. Building macroscopic models for these filaments is one approach to attain a deeper…
Streamer electrical discharges are often investigated with computer simulations of density models (also called drift-diffusion-reaction models). We review these models, detailing their physical foundations, their range of validity and the…
A streamer coupling theory is developed to describe the formation of homogenous emission, and the high moving speed of emission patterns in high pressure discharges. By considering the effects of both electron diffusion and electronic drift…
In work the results of the analysis are presented relating to the status of a streamer discharge mode in different gas detectors developed at the moment in laboratories and nuclear-physics installations. Thanks to new representations from a…
We investigate the effect of humidity on the propagation of streamers in air. We present a minimal set of chemical reactions that takes into account the presence of water in a nonthermal air plasma and considers ionization, attachment,…
We investigate discharge inception in air, in uniform background electric fields above and below the breakdown threshold. We perform 3D particle simulations that include a natural level of background ionization in the form of positive and…
We compare simulations and experiments of single positive streamer discharges in air at 100 mbar, aiming towards model validation. Experimentally, streamers are generated in a plate-plate geometry with a protruding needle. We are able to…
We investigate streamer formation in the troposphere, in electric fields above the breakdown threshold. With fully three-dimensional particle simulations, we study the combined effect of natural background ionization and of photoionization…
Streamers are ionization fronts that occur in gases at atmospheric and sub-atmospheric pressures. Numerical studies of streamers are important for practical applications but are challenging due to the multiscale nature of this discharge…
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…
We use a three-specie fluid model of electric discharge in air to simulate streamer evolution from the avalanche-to-streamer transition to the collision of opposite-polarity streamers. We estimate the upper limit on the production of…
The propagation mechanisms of plasma streamers have been observed and investigated in a surface dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) using 2D particle in cell simulations. The investigations are carried out under a simulated air mixture,…
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…
Previous studies of streamer discharge branching mechanisms have mainly been generative other than predictive. To predict or even control branching, a reliable connection between experimental conditions and streamer branching needs to be…