Review of recent results on streamer discharges and discussion of their relevance for sprites and lightning

Abstract

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 scaling with air density. First the theoretical basis of Townsend scaling and a list of six possible corrections to scaling are discussed; then the experimental evidence for the similarity between streamers and sprites is reviewed. We then discuss how far present sprite and streamer theory has been developed, and we show how streamer experiments can be interpreted as sprite simulations. We review those results of recent streamer research that are relevant for sprites and other forms of atmospheric electricity and discuss their implications for sprite understanding. These include the large range of streamer diameters and velocities and the overall 3D morphology with branching, interaction and reconnection, the dependence on voltage and polarity, the electron energies in the streamer head and the consecutive chemical efficiency and hard radiation. New theoretical and experimental results concern measurements of streamer spectra in air, the density dependence of streamer heating (hot leaders are unlikely at 80 km altitude and cold streamers are unlikely in liquids), and a discussion of the influence of magnetic fields on thermal electrons or on energetic electrons in streamers or sprites.

38 pages, 4 figures, article accepted for publication in J. Geophys. Res. - Space Physics

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Cited by in corpus (38)

• The physics of streamer discharge phenomena
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• Density models for streamer discharges: beyond cylindrical symmetry and homogeneous media
• Experimental study of the spatio-temporal development of meter-scale negative discharge in air
• Afivo: a framework for quadtree/octree AMR with shared-memory parallelization and geometric multigrid methods
• A comparison of 3D particle, fluid and hybrid simulations for negative streamers
• Growing discharge trees with self-consistent charge transport: the collective dynamics of streamers
• Spatially hybrid computations for streamer discharges: II. Fully 3D simulations
• High order fluid model for streamer discharges: I. Derivation of model and transport data
• Ionisation in atmospheres of Brown Dwarfs and extrasolar planets I The role of electron avalanche
• Sprite discharges on Venus and Jupiter-like planets: a laboratory investigation
• The effect of the stochasticity of photoionization on 3D streamer simulations
• Sub-nanosecond delays of light emitted by streamer in atmospheric pressure air: analysis of N${}_2$(C${}^3{\Pi }_u$) and N${}_2^{+}($B${}^2{\Sigma }_u^{+}$) emissions and fundamental streamer structure
• Ionisation in atmospheres of Brown Dwarfs and extrasolar planets III. Breakdown conditions for mineral clouds
• Spontaneous emergence of space stems ahead of negative leaders in lightning and long sparks
• Comparing simulations and experiments of positive streamers in air: steps toward model validation
• Condensed Matter Systems Exposed to Radiation: Multiscale Theory, Simulations, and Experiment
• Simulation of positive streamers in CO${}_2$ and in air: the role of photoionization or other electron sources
• High order fluid model for streamer discharges. II. Numerical solution and investigation of planar fronts
• A comparison of particle and fluid models for positive streamer discharges in air
• A time scale for electrical screening in pulsed gas discharges
• Ionisation in atmospheres of brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets VI: Properties of large-scale discharge events
• A computational study of accelerating, steady and fading negative streamers in ambient air
• A computational study of steady and stagnating positive streamers in N2-O2 mixtures
• Harvesting the decay energy of ${}^{26}$Al to drive lightning discharge in protoplanetary discs
• Simulations of positive streamers in air in different electric fields: steady motion of solitary streamer heads and the stability field
• Why isolated streamer discharges hardly exist above the breakdown field in atmospheric air
• A positivity-preserving scheme for the simulation of streamer discharges in non-attaching and attaching gases
• Atmospheric electrification in dusty, reactive gases in the solar system and beyond
• Comment on "NOx production in laboratory discharges simulating blue jets and red sprites" by H. Peterson et al
• Streamers in air splitting into three branches
• High-resolution electric field and temperature distributions in positive streamers
• 3D modeling of positive streamers in air with inhomogeneous density
• On the electrostatic field created at ground level by a halo
• Calculating radio emissions of positive streamer phenomena using 3D simulations
• Exploring terrestrial lightning parameterisations for exoplanets and brown dwarfs