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Corona and Sphere - Puzzle
Greetings all,
Following some very interesting discussions offlist
with Boris Petkovic, I and he have a problem we would like to throw
into the arena for comment and possibly some answers. I can
formulate the problem like this:
I have a sphere of a chosen diameter. It is connected to the top
of a TC. At some voltage, the sphere will issue a visible streamer.
We know that air streamers do not lower the Q of a system to a high
degree. The relatively high Q of system doing this has been
measured by myself and others and manifests itself as a continuing
series of beats which are visible on an e-field oscilloscope trace of
the secondary.
The question: Why does a single rooted streamer or just a
few streamers appear when the breakdown voltage of the sphere
has clearly been reached? Why not all around?
Something to consider: I have operated a coil such that the
voltage it reached was not sufficient to promote a visible streamer
but if the sphere was viewed in *very* dark conditions, the terminal
was indeed surrounded by a ball of wispy streamers issuing in all
directions.
Does anyone have any comment on this? Is there any *good*
reason why, when terminal voltage has reached such a level as to
allow the issuing of a single bright streamer more are not issued?
The problem appears simple on the surface but perhaps not so
simple if one delves deeply enough into what is happening.
I've tried to formulate the problem as concisely as I can but
perhaps Boris might like to elaborate if he feels I have missed
something. This is written in some haste as I am about to go away. I
look forward to reading the answers when I return.
Regards,
Malcolm