Speaker
Natalia Stepanovna Semeniuk
Description
See the full Abstract at http://ocs.ciemat.es/EPS2018ABS/pdf/P4.3014.pdf
Kinetic theory of gas discharge under condition of longitudinal pressure
and electric field gradient
Viktoriya S. Golyak1, Alexander O. Kokovin1, Vasily Yu. Kozhevnikov2, Andrey V.
Kozyrev1, Natalia S. Semeniuk2
1
Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia
2
Institute of High Current Electronics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of
Sciences, Tomsk, Russia
Investigation of phenomena caused by thunderstorm activity in the atmosphere is a strategic
and applied value. Papers [1, 2] demonstrate a unique relationship between the occurrence
of powerful X-ray flashes in the atmosphere and the formation of "blue jets". Proposed
model is the beginning of a way to describe this phenomenon. The task conditions of our
numerical experiment are similar to those observed in nature (no uniform distributions for
field and pressure take place). We use a circuit with a series-connected discharge gap and a
charged capacitance. The gap is the spherical sector filled with nitrogen with a pressure
gradient from 1.0 to 0.1 of atmospheric value (from cathode to anode coordinates).
We assume a generation of runaway electrons plays an important role in the breakdown
phenomenon. Therefore, for an adequate simulation we use the fundamental principles of
electron physical kinetics. Namely, the system of equations includes the Boltzmann kinetic
equation for the electron distribution function with the modeling collision integral, the
continuity equation for the discharge current, and the Kirchhoff equation for the electric
circuit. The numerical solution is carried out by grid difference schemes. The proposed
method makes it possible to simulate an electrical breakdown with sufficient accuracy and
to obtain such important characteristics as the discharge current, the distribution of the
electric field in the gap, the energy spectrum of the electron component at any time. The
proposed method for describing the discharge was successfully tested earlier for high-
pressure discharges and showed good agreement with experiment [3].
References
[1] Dwyer et. al., (2010) J. Geophys. Res., 115, D09206;
[2] Fishman et. al. (1994) Science, vol. 264, iss. 5163, pp.1313-1316.
[3] Tarasenko et. al. (2017) High Voltage, 2, pp. 49-55.
