Mechanism of a stepped leader in a negative lightning

IF 1.8 4区地球科学 Q3 GEOCHEMISTRY & GEOPHYSICS

Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics Pub Date : 2024-12-01 DOI:10.1016/j.jastp.2024.106391

A.V. Ivanovskiy

引用次数: 0

Abstract

The mechanism of a stepped leader not related to processes in the cloud is considered. The average leader speed is determined by the formation of a channel due to heating of one of the space stems in the electric field of the streamer corona. If the drift speed of the electrons in the formed channel is higher than the leader propagation speed, a drift wave arises which catches up with the boundary of the streamer zone. The electric field growth leads to a formation of the stepped leader. The mechanism is realized in case of a negative leader. Realism of this scenario has been checked by numerical simulations. For the negative leader the formation of the step with parameters close to those for natural leaders has been obtained. The estimated maximum speed of the electron drift at the stage of channel formation, which exceeds the negative leader propagation speed observed in the experiments, counts in favor of the above ideas.

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来源期刊

Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 地学-地球化学与地球物理

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

5.30%

发文量

审稿时长

6 months

期刊介绍： The Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics (JASTP) is an international journal concerned with the inter-disciplinary science of the Earth''s atmospheric and space environment, especially the highly varied and highly variable physical phenomena that occur in this natural laboratory and the processes that couple them. The journal covers the physical processes operating in the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, magnetosphere, the Sun, interplanetary medium, and heliosphere. Phenomena occurring in other "spheres", solar influences on climate, and supporting laboratory measurements are also considered. The journal deals especially with the coupling between the different regions. Solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other energetic events on the Sun create interesting and important perturbations in the near-Earth space environment. The physics of such "space weather" is central to the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics and the journal welcomes papers that lead in the direction of a predictive understanding of the coupled system. Regarding the upper atmosphere, the subjects of aeronomy, geomagnetism and geoelectricity, auroral phenomena, radio wave propagation, and plasma instabilities, are examples within the broad field of solar-terrestrial physics which emphasise the energy exchange between the solar wind, the magnetospheric and ionospheric plasmas, and the neutral gas. In the lower atmosphere, topics covered range from mesoscale to global scale dynamics, to atmospheric electricity, lightning and its effects, and to anthropogenic changes.