RE: THOR Bang energy vs. streamer length measured

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Denicolai, Marco" <Marco.Denicolai-at-tellabs-dot-com> 

Hi Jim,

 > Increasing the break rate just raises the probability that
 > the long spark happens to occur where we're looking for it.

Exactly.

 > However, what about the idea of sparks following previously
 > ionized/hot gas?  Perhaps this is a slower time scale, and
 > you'd see this effect in the under 100 bps range (probably
 > more down in the 10 bps)..  What's the time scale for
 > significant cooling of the spark channel?  Conductivity drops
 > real fast once you get below around 7000K, but that doesn't
 > mean that the breakdown voltage/ionization probabily along a
 > path isn't still higher than the surrounding areas.

I agree with you: cooling of the channel is pretty slow. But that would
affect the repeatibility of a discharge path, not its first formation.

There is evidence (papers) proving that the deviation of the leader path
is due to accumulated static charge in the gap. Sadly this has been
always investigated for positive or negative discharges, never for
alternate polarity (the TC case).

Best Regards

-