Experimental study on hard X-rays emitted from metre-scale negative discharges in air
arXiv:1501.00782 · doi:10.1088/0022-3727/48/2/025205
Abstract
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 area. The spectrum can be characterized by an exponential function with 200 keV characteristic photon energy. With nanosecond-fast photography we took detailed images of the pre-breakdown phenomena during the time when X-rays were registered. We found bipolar discharge structures, also called "pilot systems", in the vicinity of the cathode. As in our previous study of X-rays from positive discharges, we correlate the X-ray emission with encounters between positive and negative streamers. We suggest that a similar process is responsible for X-rays generated by lightning leaders.
31 pages, 13 figures
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- Time resolved 3Dinterferometric imaging of a section of a negative leader with LOFAR
- X-ray Emissions in a Multiscale Fluid Model of a Streamer Discharge
- Meter-scale spark X-ray spectrumstatistics
- An explanation of trans-ionospheric pulse pairs
- Measuring the locations and properties of VHF sources emitted from an aircraft flying through high clouds
- Hard bremsstrahlung from a high-voltage atmospheric discharge and its anisotropy
- Lightning as a natural accelerator of relativistic particles and a source of synchrotron radiation