Related papers: Laser-guided lightning
Filamentation of ultrashort laser pulses in the atmosphere offers unique opportunities for long-range transmission of high-power laser radiation and standoff detection. With the critical power of self-focusing scaling as the laser…
Modern laser sources nowadays deliver ultrashort light pulses reaching few cycles in duration, high energies beyond the Joule level and peak powers exceeding several terawatt (TW). When such pulses propagate through optically-transparent…
A recent study pointed out that macroscopic dark matter (macros) traversing through the earth's atmosphere can give rise to hot and ionized channels similar to those associated with lightning leaders. The authors of the study investigated…
The femtosecond laser filamentation is the result of the dynamic interplay between plasma self-focusing and defocusing generated by the multiphoton/tunnel ionization of air molecules. This equilibrium allows the filament to stably propagate…
In this paper, we present the first high-speed video observation of a cloud-to-ground lightning flash and its associated downward-directed Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flash (TGF). The optical emission of the event was observed by a high-speed…
High-energy-density flows through dense matter are needed for effective progress in the production of laser-driven intense sources of energetic particles and radiation, in driving matter to extreme temperatures creating state regimes…
We investigate the interaction of narrow plasma channels formed in the filamentation of ultrashort laser pulses, with a DC high voltage. The laser filaments prevent electrical arcs by triggering corona that neutralize the high-voltage…
In the certification procedure aircraft builders carry out so-called icing tests flights, where the zero degree Celsius altitude is deliberately sought and crossed in or under thunderstorms. Airbus also used these flights to test ILDAS, a…
Upward lightning is much rarer than downward lightning and requires tall ($100+$~m) structures to initiate. It may be either triggered by other lightning discharges or completely self-initiated. While conventional lightning location systems…
Layer clouds are abundant in the Earth's atmosphere. Such clouds do not become sufficiently strongly charged to generate lightning, but they show weak charging along the upper and lower cloud boundaries where there is a conductivity…
We present an updated version of Lightning, a galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting code that can model X-ray to submillimeter observations. The models in Lightning include the options to contain contributions from stellar…
Accidental exposure to overdose ionizing radiation will inevitably lead to severe biological damage, thus detecting and localizing radiation is essential. Traditional measurement techniques are generally restricted to the limited detection…
Laser communication has advances in compared with radio frequency communication as result of much high carrier frequency from ultraviolet to near infrared. Very narrow laser beam is possible to form with very high power density. But laser…
The common phenomenon of lightning still harbors many secrets and only recently a new propagation mode was observed for negative leaders. While propagating in this `Intensely Radiating Negative Leader' (IRNL) mode a negative leader emits…
It was recently demonstrated that laser filamentation was able to generate an optically transparent channel through cloud and fog for free-space optical communications applications. However, no quantitative measurement of the interaction…
We investigate the development of meter long negative discharges and focus on their X-ray emissions. We describe appearance, timing and spatial distribution of the X-rays. They appear in bursts of nanosecond duration mostly in the cathode…
In this paper, we propose observational methods for detecting lightning in protoplanetary disks. We do so by calculating the critical electric field strength in the lightning matrix gas (LMG), the parts of the disk where the electric field…
We experimentally demonstrate optical control of filamentation that occurs during propagation of intense, ultrashort laser pulses through crystals like barium fluoride and sapphire. Control is exercised by rotating the plane of polarization…
Macroscopic dark matter (macros) is a broad class of alternative candidates to particle dark matter. These candidates would transfer energy to matter primarily through elastic scattering. A sufficiently large macro passing through the…
Powerful laser-plasma processes are explored to generate discharge currents of a few $100\,$kA in coil targets, yielding magnetostatic fields (B-fields) in excess of $0.5\,$kT. The quasi-static currents are provided from hot electron…