Long streamers in the upper atmosphere above thundercloud

Raǐzer, Yu. P.; Milikh, G. M.; Shneider, Mikhail N.; Novakovski, S. V.

doi:10.1088/0022-3727/31/22/014

Cited by 111 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Extensive experimental data have been acquired in laboratory situations to support the electrical nature of the formation and development of a leader discharge (Raizer, 1991). The physical processes underlying leader breakdown consist of igniting electrons, leading an avalanche to streamer corona criterion, and evolving streamer corona to leader channel.…”

Section: Critical Field For a Leadermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The breakdown of air in long gaps, e.g., several tens of meters, occurs via a growth of a leader from one electrode to the other with a high electrical conductivity (Raizer, 1991). One of the most important features of lightning discharge consists of the random behavior of its trajectory, which is the behavior of leader discharge (Uman, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulation of gigantic jets propagating from the top of thunderclouds to the ionosphere

2005

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A randomly stepped leader propagation model is developed to study gigantic jets, a new type of lightning, connecting thunderclouds to the ionosphere. The thundercloud is considered as one electrode igniting gigantic jets and the ionosphere is assumed as the other. The propagation of stepped leader is considered as a field controlled random growth process. The electric field is produced due to the thundercloud charges and the selfconsistently propagating leader. A leader propagation probability is proposed to determine whether the leader grows at the next step and what the step direction of the leader is in case of growth. The results show that leader propagation spans ∼72 km from igniting position to the ionosphere. The simulation of leader propagation appears to be in agreement with the structure of observed gigantic jets.

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Section: Critical Field For a Leadermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation of gigantic jets propagating from the top of thunderclouds to the ionosphere

2005

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“…see Raizer et al, 1998;. From the above analysis, it is clear that the streamer parameters in the sprites and GJs are scaled by reduced air density in the same manner.…”

Section: Streamersmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…Initiation of streamers due to individual electron avalanches will occur most likely in the vicinity of the sharp portion of an electrode, which is typical for point-to-plane corona discharges (e.g. Raizer et al, 1998;. The charge density at streamer head is so large that the electric field in the vicinity of the head can reach a value about 4-7 times E k (Celestin and Pasko, 2010).…”

Section: Streamersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The requirements for transition from an electron avalanche to a streamer generation also include the critical number of avalanching electrons and a minimum radius of the avalanche region, sharp points of the electrode surface to enhance the local electric field, and many other factors (e.g. Raizer et al, 1998;Bazelyan and Raizer, 1998). Streamer breakdown is not addressed in any detail in the present work, and the reader is referred to above works for details about streamers.…”

Section: Streamersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Underlying mechanisms of transient luminous events: a review

Сурков

Hayakawa

2012

Ann. Geophys.

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Abstract. Transient luminous events (TLEs) occasionally observed above a strong thunderstorm system have been the subject of a great deal of research during recent years. The main goal of this review is to introduce readers to recent theories of electrodynamics processes associated with TLEs. We examine the simplest versions of these theories in order to make their physics as transparent as possible. The study is begun with the conventional mechanism for air breakdown at stratospheric and mesospheric altitudes. An electron impact ionization and dissociative attachment to neutrals are discussed. A streamer size and mobility of electrons as a function of altitude in the atmosphere are estimated on the basis of similarity law. An alternative mechanism of air breakdown, runaway electron mechanism, is discussed. In this section we focus on a runaway breakdown field, characteristic length to increase avalanche of runaway electrons and on the role played by fast seed electrons in generation of the runaway breakdown. An effect of thunderclouds charge distribution on initiation of blue jets and gigantic jets is examined. A model in which the blue jet is treated as upward-propagating positive leader with a streamer zone/corona on the top is discussed. Sprite models based on streamer-like mechanism of air breakdown in the presence of atmospheric conductivity are reviewed. To analyze conditions for sprite generation, thunderstorm electric field arising just after positive cloudto-ground stroke is compared with the thresholds for propagation of positively/negatively charged streamers and with runway breakdown. Our own estimate of tendril's length at the bottom of sprite is obtained to demonstrate that the runaway breakdown can trigger the streamer formation. In conclusion we discuss physical mechanisms of VLF (very low frequency) and ELF (extremely low frequency) phenomena associated with sprites.

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Chemical and thermal impacts of sprite streamers in the Earth's mesosphere

2015

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A one‐dimensional self‐consistent model has been developed to study the chemical and thermal effects of a single sprite streamer in the Earth's mesosphere. We have used sprite streamer profiles with three different driving current durations (5 ms, 50 ms, and 100 ms) between 50 and 80 km of altitude and considering a kinetic scheme of air with more than 90 chemical species. Our model predicts strong increases in practically all the concentrations of the species studied at the moment of the streamer head passage. Moreover, their densities remain high during the streamer afterglow phase. The concentration of electrons can reach values of up to 108 cm−3 in the three cases analyzed. The model also predicts an important enhancement, of several orders of magnitude above ambient values, of nitrogen oxides and several metastables species. On the other hand, we found that the 4.26 μm IR emission brightness of CO2 can reach 10 GR at low altitudes (< 65 km) for the cases of intermediate (50 ms) and long (100 ms) driving currents. These results suggest the possibility of detecting sprite IR emissions from space with the appropriate instrumentation. Finally, we found that the thermal impact of sprites in the Earth's mesosphere is proportional to the driving current duration. This produces variations of more than 40 K (in the extreme case of a 100 ms driving current) at low altitudes (< 55 km) and at about 10 s after the streamer head.

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Long streamers in the upper atmosphere above thundercloud

Cited by 111 publications

References 18 publications

Simulation of gigantic jets propagating from the top of thunderclouds to the ionosphere

Simulation of gigantic jets propagating from the top of thunderclouds to the ionosphere

Underlying mechanisms of transient luminous events: a review

Chemical and thermal impacts of sprite streamers in the Earth's mesosphere

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