Interaction of streamers in air and other oxygen-nitrogen mixtures

Abstract

The interaction of streamers in nitrogen-oxygen mixtures such as air is studied. First, an efficient method for fully three-dimensional streamer simulations in multiprocessor machines is introduced. With its help, we find two competing mechanisms how two adjacent streamers can interact: through electrostatic repulsion and through attraction due to nonlocal photo-ionization. The non-intuitive effects of pressure and of the nitrogen-oxygen ratio are discussed. As photo-ionization is experimentally difficult to access, we finally suggest to measure it indirectly through streamer interactions.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Photoionization in negative streamers: fast computations and two propagation modes
• The multiscale nature of streamers
• Saffman-Taylor streamers: mutual finger interaction in an electric breakdown

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Positive and negative streamers in ambient air: measuring diameter, velocity and dissipated energy
• Positive and negative streamers in ambient air: modeling evolution and velocities
• Positive streamers in air and nitrogen of varying density: experiments on similarity laws
• Streamers, sprites, leaders, lightning: from micro- to macroscales
• Reconnection and merging of positive streamers in air