Related papers: Streamer branching rationalized by conformal mappi…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Non-ionized media subject to strong fields can become locally ionized by penetration of finger-shaped streamers. We study negative streamers between planar electrodes in a simple deterministic continuum approximation. We observe that for…
We present a computational framework for simulating filamentary electric discharges, in which channels are represented as conducting cylindrical segments. The framework requires a model that predicts the position, radius, and line…
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…
The numerical simulation of the development of a streamer discharge in a gap with an external longitudinal magnetic field was used to demonstrate the self-focusing of such discharges. Self-focusing is caused by a sharp deceleration of the…
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 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…
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…
The growth of streamer discharges is determined at their heads, for individual streamers as well as in collective phenomena, such as streamer trees or coronas or streamer bursts ahead of lightning leaders. Some properties of the streamer…
We introduce the generic structure of a growth model for branched discharge trees that consistently combines a finite channel conductivity with the physical law of charge conservation. It is applicable, e.g., to streamer coronas near tip or…
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 minimal density model for negative streamer ionization fronts is investigated. An earlier moving boundary approximation for this model consisted of a "kinetic undercooling" type boundary condition in a Laplacian growth problem of…
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…
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 develop an axial model for single steadily propagating positive streamers in air. It uses observable parameters to estimate quantities that are difficult to measure. More specifically, for given velocity, radius, length and applied…
Streamer discharges pose basic problems in plasma physics, as they are very transient, far from equilibrium and have high ionization density gradients; they appear in diverse areas of science and technology. The present paper focuses on the…
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…